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First day of school

Oh my god. Wow. She's just getting to be such a big girl. There were no tears (though a little bit of the whine as we got her up this morning), just sweet hugs and kisses goodbye. We walked into the school and she saw a friend from her pre-k and they ran up to each other and started jumping around excitedly, then we went on to her classroom (because today's the only day we are allowed to take her all the way into the classroom) where she said hello Mrs. Carter to the wrong person. Mrs. Carter came in behind her and helped her put her backpack into her cubby, which she has to share with another student and frankly I don't see how two backpacks and lunch boxes are ever going to fit in there. Then she announced that she was going to the drawing table to "work on her letters." Oh. My. God. And that's exactly what she did.

So me and T end up just standing around, feeling abandoned, and yet very glad she's so excited to start school. We were out of there by 7:30am.

Course this is all pretty normal for Z. She's always excited about something new, and is eager to experience it. In a couple of weeks, she'll probably start exhibiting more clingy behavior at drop off, which T will have to deal with (poor guy, it's going to break his heart). It always takes a few weeks for reality to set in. In this case, I think reality will be, "wow, we have to do so much work!"

I'm really glad that she already knows and is friends with some of the kids in her class. She's good friends with two boys in particular, and will probably get into some trouble with at least one of them.

After writing down the letters A-F, she took the piece of paper and shoved it into the teacher's face. Wow. I hope Mrs. Carter can deal effectively with Z's enthusiasm. You know, I'm excited about her learning, and the free school, and that she's a healthy and happy, extremely well-adjusted kid. But I'm nervous about her behavior in school. Will she listen to the teacher (she has listening issues)? Will her enthusiasm and energy be hard to contain and get her in trouble? Will her daddy get her to school on time? Will she ever learn how to navigate that large building? Will the Stepping Stone school bus ever forget her?

Sheesh.

Update

Whew, Zoey pulled the plug on Hannah Montana after about 10 minutes. "Mommy, I really don't like Hannah Montana, now."

I love my awesome kid!

Oh NOS!

She's watching Hannah Montana! Even though before today she would always say, "oh, I HATE Hannah Montana." But today she says, "Well, maybe I'll try it..."

Hopefully, she'll say in a few minutes, "Okay, Mommy. I tried it, and you know what, it sucks."

In other news, she's finally putting her head under water when she swims. This is huge, as she's had a phobia about it since she was about 3 1/2 and went underwater during swim class, and then tried to breathe. It's been two years of coaxing her back into the big pool, but she finally did it. And of course, now that the light bulb has gone off (Oh, that's how you do it!), she finds that she loves it. I'm so proud. It's hard to get over a phobia.

Just a couple of quick pictures of z's pre-k graduation ceremony. I'm on my way to Houston to play a show tonight at Rudyard's, and I wanted to get the pics up so I can write more about it when I get to my parent's house.

Oh, and if you're in Houston tonight, and looking for something to do, come on out to Rudyard's and say hello. Srsly.

As seen on TV

Hey, been a long time. How are you? We are fine.

(Awkward moment of silence.)

So, Z has finally been drifting away from the toddler cartoons toward more advanced kid stuff. Her current favorites are "Growing Up Creepy," about a human girl who was adopted as a baby by a couple of bugs. She's a "little different, not everyday" as the opening song, which Z loves, goes. It's cute, and the little girl is real goth.

Another favorite is "Grossology," about a brother and sister team who work for the Department of Grossology. Yeah, they investigate gross stuff, like the one episode where they all got stuck in school for the weekend while a mad scientist uses the empty building to work on his giant external colon experiment. They defeat this...thing...by feeding it lots and lots of prunes. Oh, and the mad scientist uses tapeworms as weapons.

I don't mind the new shows all that much, as I've gotten really tired of Dora, but unfortunately they are on a channel that also shows a lot of commercials, and Z's been quite taken with a number of them. But not the ones you would suspect. She's not bugging me about all these toys she wants. No. The commercials she likes are infomercials. This kid suddenly knows the name Billy Mays, and keeps telling me that we need to buy things from him. I keep telling her that we shouldn't trust Billy Mays, as the stuff we see on TV commercials doesn't always work as well as they say.

Having said that, after taking a quick inventory of some of my stuff, I realize I do actually have a tub of Oxyclean. And frankly it works pretty well when you add it to a load of colors. But I get it at Target.

So now, she tells me that we really need to buy the "Awesome Auger," which "takes the hard work out of yard work" (scam report here), and the "Pancake Puff" maker (which supposedly can be quite tasty). Now, the Pancake Puff thingy isn't a Billy Mays product, but it is an infomercial. Why these sales shows are so interesting to a five year old is curious to me. I mean, sure, especially when we didn't have cable...or hell, who am I kidding, even now...they can be fascinating things to watch. And yes, sometimes I do want to buy, but you should almost never buy these things off the TV because the products are almost always extremely cheaply made, and the shipping and handling charges are outrageous. The Awesome Auger link above lists countless stories of idiot consumers, obviously tired of all the hard work from their yard work, were charged twice as much or more in shipping and handling charges as for the products.

People, Walgreens almost always has shelf space devoted to these products. Go there sometime if you really want to try something out. Also, Big Lots. They sometimes have lots of them.

And if I see a Pancake Puff maker, I just might buy it.

Milestone

Today I registered my daughter for kindergarten. Gulp!