Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canucks!
Hope it was full of family, friends, and food.
The girlie's turkey centerpiece for our Thanksgiving dinner.
Blog Archives
Saying goodbye to pre-k
The girls class, for their very last day of pre-k, did a grand wind-up at the spray park and playground half way between our house and the school. The kids all had an absolute blast! But I’ll admit to some mixed feelings.
On one hand, I’m super happy for Summer to finally be here. I was so busy as camp co-ordinator last year that I missed out on a lot of regular Summer holiday stuff with the girl. I really have been looking forward to spending this Summer doing all the stuff I missed last year.
On the other hand? Rhonda and Tracy have both become such a huge part of our lives over the last two years, saying goodbye was awfully difficult. They really were so wonderful, and the girl and I both looked forward to seeing them four days a week. They will be sorely missed.
Okay, onto something cute before I cry. 😉
Here’s the girl and her buddy Parker, cuddling to warm up.
Well, scratch that… My attempts to upload have failed repeatedly. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to try another day.
Night all! Be good to one another.
The Pre-K Graduation (photos and videos)
So, yesterday was kid-kid’s pre-k graduation. The kids all did such a great job, and they were all so patient (it’s hard waiting to hear your name called through TWO classes worth of little ones). Lots of people have been waiting ALMOST as patiently for photos and videos – so here they are.
Now, before we start the videos, please note: The girlie had her hair done beautifully. I left her in her classroom about twenty minutes before they came down to the gym… how you see her, is how she came down. LMAO It took every ounce of willpower to ignore my OCD self and NOT rush over and fix her pretty little headband. But I didn’t. I left it as is, and she felt good about herself (me mussing with her would not have been good for her self esteem – and we love her as she is, mussed up tresses and all).
Here they are performing “clap, clap, clap your hands”. Watch afterwards… little Alyssa runs to the edge of the stage looking for her mom, hoping for a little assistance. LOL Too cute! Oh! And yes, my daughter is the only one in the entire class who insists on bowing and taking her due credit for her performance. LMAO No… she couldn’t possibly be MY daughter. heh heh.
Song number two – all about what they learned this year in pre-k. 😀
The girlie sings this song all the time, it’s one of her favourites. We spend a lot of time answering questions about why they’d have a rat chasing away a snake when snakes eat rats… which always cracks me up. She takes it all so seriously. 😉 But honestly? Why do they have a rat chasing a snake?
So… what do you think? Maybe another performer in the family? LOL
Damon (who took all the videos for me – thanks so much!) missed the very beginning of this next bit. Ms. Tracy introduced each of the kids, and said a few words about them before giving them a book and their certificate. Of course, our little one – who goes to school dressed as a princess or a fairy (and slightly less often as a cowboy or pirate) half the time, was introduced as “Miss Lily-Ann Marie Smith Princess Cinderella”. 😉 And as for the comment that they watched her “become smart as a whip”? We think she always was. LMAO
Back when she was only three, and in her first year of pre-k, Lily-Ann had both a “boyfriend” and a “girlfriend” (the second of which is still her bff, even though she went off to kindergarten and kid-kid didn’t). And that boyfriend title stuck, as Cale also stuck around for a second year of pre-k. I made sure to grab a quick photo of the two of them on their way into the school for their pre-k graduation. All dressed up, and SUPER cute:
Lily-Ann & Cale – a couple of cuties
Lastly is the girl with her best bud from this year. Parker is seriously the sweetest little boy ever. He helps Lily-Ann with her fear of heights, always waits for her to make sure she hasn’t gotten herself into trouble, and is by her side about 80% of the time. He really is such a huge sweetheart. I’m so glad she’s got a friend in him. 🙂 So, I had to make sure to grab a shot of them after their grad:
Lily-Ann & Parker – a mom can’t help but hope he makes it out of the “friend zone” some day.
So thanks for sticking with me through this video and photo laden post. It was a very special day for the girl and us. Can’t believe she’ll be on her way to kindergarten this Autumn. I blinked and my baby girl is already a school kid. How exactly does that happen?
Tomorrow’s the big day… pre-k graduation.
It’s been a long day. Lots of stuff going on. But now? right now? Now I just want to go to sleep. Can’t though. Still more to be done.
Tomorrow the girl graduates from Pre-K. Don’t ask me how we got from that tiny infant that all the doctors and nurses kept coming in to peek on because they’d heard from other doctors and nurses about how special she was… that tiny thing that left the hospital at 6 pounds 12 ounces… to THIS! ‘Cause truly? I have no idea how we got here so quickly. Yet here we are.
Today Kid-kid gave each of her classmates and her teachers her farewell gift. We bundled up gourmet jellybeans (seven or eight flavours – all green) in little baggies tied with green ribbons. And tied little note cards she drew in, wrote in, and put stickers in onto each bag. All because of a song their class sings (and we now sing at home too) about avoiding eating green jellybeans because of all the trouble they cause. Everyone loved them. 🙂
Her little dress, along with her shoes and hairband (all that she picked out) are hanging up, waiting to be worn tomorrow. She’ll look adorable – but she always does. 😉 It’s going to be super cute. She’s already told us what songs they’re performing – and that she get’s to be the rat in the farmer song. LOL We like rats, so that’s just fine by us.
So, that’s it. I have to run. Still lots to do tonight before I can hit the hay. Thankfully the girl is snoozing away though. At least she’ll be well rested for her big day. 🙂
A full life, a good life.
Tonight is one of those nights where if I were someone who actually planned out their blog posts I might have something to write about. LOL But I’m not. The fact of the matter is that my muse is pulling me in a few different directions and I’m feeling somewhat scattered because of it.
I want to write about the fabulous Father’s Day crafts the girl and I have been working on… but if either my Dad or hers actually read the post it would ruin the surprise. I want to write about a MW friend of mine who’s ghost hunting stories got me thinking about all the things out there we don’t really know about. I want to write more about Skippyjon Jones, and my surprise at how few people I know have heard about this fabulous series of books. I want to write about the fact that kid-kid is going to be “graduating” from pre-k this month, and what choices we’ve made about our next step. So… yeah… kinda being pulled in a few too many directions just now. 😉
Do you ever have one of those days? When you’ve spent time working on so many different projects, and thinking about so many different things, that you’re just left feeling kinda scattered at the end of it? The girl and I do so many fabulous things (today we actually drew our own chalk zoo on the sidewalk in front of our house – complete with lion, 2 crocodiles who’s heads we created by tracing our butts and legs, a baby elephant who’s nose is too big for her face, a hippopotamus, a bear wearing blue jeans and loafers, and a bunch of people who came to see them all), and I always have so much on the go that the problem is rarely coming up with something to write about – rather it’s narrowing down to ONE thing to share.
I really do love everything I’m involved in, and the fact of the matter is, I’ve actually cut back a great deal. I’m no longer the President of the Green Party of Saskatchewan, nor am I associated with Camp fYrefly, and I haven’t been dedicating the time to scrapbooking that I used to. I’m also done with dog shows (at least for the next month or so – I doubt I’ll ever actually be done with them, I love them too much). Yet my plate is still happily full. And of everything I do? I love the things I do with, or for my daughter the best… and that includes a LOT of things. 😉
Whenever Lily-Ann and I get talking, I can’t help but emphasize to her how lucky we are… in so very many ways. But one of the simplest is that our lives are full of love. We both have so many people who love us and care about us. And that is a very big deal.
Yep. It’s a good life.
The girl, posing on her “sitting rock” on our way to school today.
The Kid’s First School Concert – Sharin’ Some Mamma Pride!
This is kid-kid’s second year of pre-kindergarten, but this is the first year her class participated in the school’s holiday concert. I have to admit, it was a pretty neat experience. That many people jammed into that tiny gym was a bit of a nightmare, but thankfully the pre-k kids were up first… and we took off right afterwards. LOL We joined my parents and my Grampa at Timmies for a candy cane hot chocolate before taking the girl home to bed.
Wanna see the concert (the pre-k performance anyway)? Here it is! I was busy taking photographs – and yes, you can hear the shutter clicking away on the video – so Damon held the iPad to record the performance for me. He thought it was a little overkill, to have photos and video, but I assured him that it was definitely needed. 😉
Wish I could just imbed it into the post, but it was too big a file to email to myself so I could post it on youtube (in which case I’d have been able to imbed it). Instead I had to upload it to my MobileMe account with Apple… but here’s the link. The entire clip is only three minutes long and it’s totally adorable.
The Christmas Concert – http://gallery.me.com/greengrrrl#100014/IMG_1078
You can’t miss kid-kid. She’s all dressed in green (green shirt, green jeans), wearing a suede and lambswool vest, a red tutu, and silver antlers. You’d think she was the only kid who knew it was a HOLIDAY concert. 😉 Of course, you can’t miss hearing her. She sang louder than anyone else on that stage. LOL
Yep. She’s freakin’ awesome and she knows it. 😀
My daughter, the cosmetologist.
Today the kid did my hair and make-up, for the first time. I have to admit, I’m surprised it took her this long to ask to do so. And even though we had things to do (out and about) afterwards, I offered myself as canvas.
What did I learn from this little foray into pre-k beauty? Not much has changed in the last 20 years. When I was fourteen I rocked the whole blue eyeshadow thing, and today (at 34) I can still rock it. 😉
And rather than a mere photograph of her work, the girl wanted a video. So here it is:
A proud, proud day in the Smith house.
So today I arrive to pick up my daughter from pre-k as the children and their parents are all making their way outside. When Rhonda catches my attention and says “I have one for you today.” From her tone, I knew I was in for a doozie.
When Rhonda was no longer busy with another family she told me how the class had been playing with play doh. Then she continued on.
…informing me that my daughter, of all the things in the world she could have created, that my daughter made a penis.
Yep. A penis.
Instinctively my hands flew to my mouth.
Of course, it had to be MY daughter.
I then picked my eyeballs up off the floor and returned them to their sockets.
Rhonda laughed, and very soon it was just she, Tracy (my daughter’s pre-k teacher heard us out in the hall and came to join our discussion), and myself. Oh the story… the details… the visuals…
When Lily-Ann had explained what she was crafting: “It’s a penis!” They had looked back and forth at one another, neither willing to touch what she’d shared with a ten foot poll. And Rhonda’s use of her hands while telling the story just about had me peeing myself. She showed how the kid had been rolling it out on the table with vigor, how big and thick a piece of play doh she’d used. Oh my.
Yep.
Now for a bit of back story for clarity:
I am very open. I’ll talk about anything. I believe in being honest and I don’t sugar coat things. So when my daughter was one and a half and began having questions we talked about where babies come from. We talked about how flowers produce seeds, how birds lay eggs, how puppies come to be born, and how she (and other babies) are also born… and how all these things are alike, yet very different. And how even from family to family, everyone has a different birth story.
By the time the kid was two she knew the difference (and proper names) for her parts. And if you ask her, she’ll happily tell you the difference between many different (for some folk, uncomfortable to mention) body parts and whether they are male organs or female organs, where they can be found, and what they’re for. So, I suppose it was only a matter of time before she began sharing her education.
Back to today:
Later, after returning home and settling into our late afternoon routine, I asked the girlie what she made with her play doh. She was completely open and nonchalant about the whole thing. With a shrug, she replied “a penis”. No big deal. Then I heard her Dad walk in the front door, and before we could get any further, she ran off to welcome him home.
So what does my husband get greeted with as soon as he arrives home? Her story, told rather proudly (because it must be important if so many people feel the need to talk about it), about how she made a penis at school. But it was okay since “it didn’t look like a real one because I made it orange.”
If nothing else, the girlie now knows that just like we shouldn’t talk about our vulva at the grocery store we also shouldn’t make a play doh penis at school. Valuable lessons that we wish we’d thought to teach PRIOR to it becoming very evident that we needed to teach them.
Lesson learned.
I wonder what she’ll teach me I should have taught her next.
Yikes!
TD 365 