Such a Big Girl!

I spent the day more or less as I had planned; I did some more sorting of kids' clothes, job hunting online and so forth. I also spent a fair bit of time of time calling assorted preschools to see about enrolling Lizzy in September.

She will be four September 4th and as such she misses the school district's kindergarten cutoff by three days. I'm not yet sure whether we will try to test her into kindergarten at just-five; a lot depends on how she does in preschool. Leanna has a late-summer birthday and so barely made her cutoff - she's struggled in school as one of the youngest in her class - and Abby, who has a December birthday and is therefore one of the older kids in her class, has not struggled in school on any level but reading (which is not so much a matter of relative age and maturity as it is learning style).

Lizzy has one advantage neither of them had at the time... and that's older siblings. She has perforce learned to get along with others in ways the older two simply did not have to do; Leanna never attended preschool (although she was in a home-based child care) and Abby attended a daycare center/preschool, but was only with her peers for 99% of the day, not with children in other age groups. So Lizzy is used to being the baby of  most groups, except when playing with her cousin Lucy, who is not yet at the play-with stage; at not-yet-two she tends to play near instead. Lizzy does too, at three-almost-four, but is beginning to be inclined toward cooperative play. Running off some of her energy three days a week might not be a bad plan either.

So I want her in a preschool - for one or two school years, depending - where she can be in a mixed-age group. Now, I have a number of (outdated) credits in Early Childhood Education, and Laston is trained as a K-12 teacher (his favorite is middle school science; if you want a baking-soda volcano, he's your guy. Although he might be inclined to use some esoteric something to make the lava more realistic, but I digress). We are pretty much agreed that Montessori is the way to go for Lizzy; she needs more structure than we (or Grandma, for that matter) are likely to give her at home, but the freedom to do what interests her (right now she's spelling words in a puzzle she co-opted from Abby, and is frustrated because the p, q, b, and d pieces look so similar) and a mixed-age group.

So I - being me - have made a spreadsheet of local preschools - Montessori and otherwise - for the fall. I'll need to enroll her soon. So far the best bet is three mornings a week at one in the Bothell High Tech Corridor. I plan to visit them, and in the meantime, I want to send her to my favorite mama-doesn't-stay drop-in daycare a couple mornings a week. The reason for this is three-fold: 1) running off energy again, 2) get her used to the idea or going to school, and hopefully fully potty-trained as her peers will be doing likewise, and 3) giving her the opportunity to attend "camp" just like her big sister Abby. Should be fun.

Back in the Swing of Things

Abby's out swimming with Kiki (and Kiki's dad; no unsupervised swimmers around here). Lizzy's having Rest Time in their room (which means she has to lie down, but she may watch DVDs). Laston just got home from work and I had a day much like yesterday - I got a lot done but none of it is visible. And we had lunch on the porch because the weather is beautiful today. It was nice.

Tomorrow Lizzy goes to my mom while Abby is at school and that means - drumroll, please - I can Get More Done. I do a run through my job hunting routine in the morning, and then I go through the rest of the girls' clothes to separate out That Which Is Outgrown, make an appointment with Saturday's Child to bring it in, make a list of what they need for the summer (so far it's jammies and sandals), and tidy this place up. Then lunch, another swing through Job Hunt World, grab Abby from school and Lizzy from Grandma, come home, make a snack, supervise homework, make supper, negotiate play time, put Lizzy to bed, make Abby take a shower, read a chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to Abby, wrangle with her about bedtime and send her off to bed.

Tuesday will be much the same, with a break for groceries around 10AM, and organizing books in place of sorting clothes. Wednesday will be toys. I hope to have this place whipped into shape by the time I go back to work and I hope in turn that happy day will occur before it's officially summer (around two weeks).

Wish me luck.

Saturday

Another of those days where I feel as though I got nothing done, but really, I did accomplish a fair bit. Lizzy and I went for a walk to the playground, I did some dishes, some laundry, cleaned old leftovers out of the fridge, went through about a third of the kids' clothes to set up bags for the local children's second-hand shop, planned next week's meals, and placed an order with safeway.com. And looked for a job online and applied to three positions and kept Lizzy and myself fed all day as well as Laston when he got home from work. I wasn't idle. But the house looks like I did nothing at all.

So we put Lizzy to bed and we're currently watching Sherlock Holmes. So far it's pretty good, but they are all seeming to be mumbling a bit and it's so dark that it's rather like the screen itself is mumbling too; neither the sound nor the picture are very clear. The picture at least may be that it's not dark in here; some residual glare from the window and all that. The indistinct sound is not explainable that way though.

ETA: We're trying to like this movie. We wanted to like this movie; we both like Holmes and Watson as characters, we like the actors, etc. But we are both remaining ungripped by it. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark? Now there's a tortured anti-hero (or is it Hero in Spite of Himself?) I can get behind. As Sherlock Holmes not so much.

Lizzy's fear of being alone appears to be inversely proportional to the degree in which I am involved in whatever it is I am trying to do after she goes to bed. She has no sense of time, really, so "Mama will come check on you in x minutes" isn't working very well; she tends to think I mean x seconds instead!

Thus is life with small children.

My Favorite Villain

Magneto. He's a very sympathetic villain. In spite of all his rhetoric about mutants being Übermensch (which is usually played up a lot for the contrast, as his origin story is as a Nazi Concentration Camp victim), he is a very human mutant. His power is invisible, he looks human, and his angst is believable. None of this I-must-rule-the-world motivation for a power grab, nor the I-am-just-a-nutjob (nutjobs are terrific if done well, but most of them aren't) reason. He has a good basis for his villainy; he even agrees with his nemesis on many points. They just have different methods of protecting their fellow mutants.

Not as hot as Thor, but not bad to look at either. Thor by definition is a hero (eventually) and by necessity as a bruiser comic book hero not all that complex a character. He fights, he becomes a good guy through altruism, and he earns back his spurs hammer. Magneto (and for that matter Professor X) are heroes and villains of the mind, not the muscles; their characters are considerably more complex thereby.

Anyway, I took Laston to see this movie for his birthday, as he took me to see Thor for Mothers' Day, and we are both taking my dad to Green Lantern on Fathers' Day. I imagine we'll go see Captain America: The First Avenger for... well... we'll find some excuse.

Superhero Summer is fun.

Annnnnd... FIXED!

My car is now legal. Still not clean - I got a waiver because while I can afford an O2 sensor with my mom's help, I can't afford a new catalytic converter until I have a job or a tax return or something - but legal. And I also went to the unemployment office and they said a) "We like writers' resumes; they're usually coherent and there are only little stylistic changes to recommend," and b) "You're completing the forms just fine and your benefits will continue". Well, good.

I went to Half-Price Books and traded in a half dozen each of books and DVDs; received enough cash to buy Abby a book and buy myself lunch. In about six months Abby and Lizzy will be Beezus' and Ramona's ages respectively in this book, and with Abby's recent leap in reading proficiency, I'd like to reward her with a story I know she likes (my little Selena Gomez fan loved the movie although in the movie both girls are older) and is now ready to read on her own. I also entered Abby in Half-Price Book's summer reading program; she could earn a $20 gift card to the store.

Then I had lunch and went to my appointment at Saturday's Child, a local children's second hand shop. I traded in a trunk-full of old baby clothes and gear and toys, and got enough credit to buy four jumpers (for my non-North-American readers, a jumper in this context you would call a 'pinafore' - the kind of sleeveless dress one wears over a shirt) and two t-shirts for Lizzy; and two tops, a pair of velour track pants and a dress for Abby. With store credit left for next time. I have always loved this store, both before and after its management switch.

So tomorrow I'm starting  homemade chili in the crock pots (3-bean chili, in three different degrees of spice), taking Abby to school, taking Lizzy to our favorite place to get her hair trimmed (she's never had a "real" haircut before), running to the grocery store for a few staples, cleaning house for the game, packing Abby's bag for her dad's, installing the cushion pad my mom got me in the couch, picking Abby up at school and taking her to her dad's, and gaming.

Never a dull moment around here. We're too busy for dull moments.

Things That go BUMP!

What is it about small children that makes them take your last nerve (upon which they already are), pull it out straight, and jump up and down on it? Abby was wiggly tonight, Lizzy was bouncy (and injuring herself as usual - a minor head-bump on a padded couch arm) and I was ready to duct-tape them both to the wall... it's been that kind of week. (And I kid... the duct-tape-to-a-wall is purely fantasy - I would never act on it).

Abby and I were playing our usual Big Fish Game tonight, and she was scratching. She has dry skin and does this fairly often, but this time she was using her lotion on one part of her body, scratching another part, and just kept scratching rather than - say - applying lotion to the new itchy part. It was driving me batty.

Lizzy chose tonight to develop a sudden fear of the What-Ifs. She had worked herself up into actual fear. You've met the What-Ifs. They're ubiquitous (I sound like Dr. Seuss - "The Ubiquitous What-If's of Kalamazoo" or some such) and they impinge upon otherwise normal households, usually at bedtime (or - as tonight - an hour and a half past bedtime. But I digress.). What if there are monsters in my room? There aren't; I chased them all out years ago. I'm too mean for monsters to stick around here. But what if you're asleep and they sneak past you? Uh... here! This is the foam sword that Abby used to slay bad dreams when she was four! You're only three and a half and I'm trusting you to slay them yourself! But but but... but what if... Lizzy, I'm right here, now relax and close your eyes and stop freaking out.

Once she relaxed it took her exactly 78 seconds to fall asleep. I know; I counted. And once I wrote it out here, I was not frustrated, angry, or even annoyed anymore. Because really, how long can one remain irritated at eight-and-three-year-olds for being eight and three? Especially once they have ceased jumping on that nerve and have settled down to something like this?