Overcome

As we were walking PJ into school this morning I had this amazing rush of feelings for her, this absolute love just simply washed over me.

She was skipping ahead, dressed all in pink with red sparkle shoes to finish it all off.

I got her attention with a little “Psssst”. She turned to look at me. I caught up with her, bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

She blinked, wiped her hand over the kiss and said, “I hate kisses, they get lipstick all over me.”

As quickly as the feeling came, it left.

Playdate from China

Last night PJ went to Kindergarten Roundup for her Chinese school. The whole exercise is to get the kids familiar with the building, to meet the teachers, to ride the bus and to see a little bit of what their day will be like.

PJ came home from this experience filled with excitement. She finally has something that is hers and hers alone. Separate from her brothers. And she is eating it up.

This afternoon she had one of her classmates over. This particular friend will not be attending the Chinese school in the fall and PJ was telling her all about the evening. She told her that the teachers never said anything she understood. Her friend then questioned what she thought they might have been saying to her. PJ’s response: I don’t know…they just kept saying GOINNG ZING QUANG JAUNG LANG!

Then they both broke out in hysterical fits of laughter.

PJ’s birthday crown

The reason I’m most proud of this…

I’m a whole month early.

How freakishly perceptive

Yesterday PJ saw CT walk off the bus. Immediately she said, “Ooooohhh, he’s so sad…oh no, he’s so sad” and ran to the door to open it up for him.

I thought to myself, he looks just like he always does when he gets off the bus.

When he walked through the door, he burst into tears.

Artful conversation

CT and PJ were sitting at the kitchen table this afternoon making little figures out of clay. As they sat and sculpted they also chatted and the following is what I overheard:

CT: PJ, why are you always so mean?

PJ: I was born mean.

Baptism by complete submersion

We have the opportunity to send PJ to a brand new Mandarin Chinese Immersion program next year for kindergarten. When Adam brought this up to me I was completely against it. You know, you are suppose to go to school with your siblings, in the same building, ride the bus together and have your parents be able to help you with your homework.

I thought I would let him follow up on this new found “opportunity” and then secretly just hoped it would die out by itself. But that’s not what happened.

What has happened is that we started asking questions, reading more about it and realizing it really is a great opportunity.

And for me, I’ve had to ask myself “why”. Why I had such an immediate negative response to the idea and what’s behind that.

I realized it’s simply fear of the unknown, fear of not being able to help because I don’t know the language, fear because she will be alone and not in the same school as her brother or riding the bus with her brother or being in class with the friends she already has, fear that she will feel different or isolated, fear because it’s such a drastic change from what my perception of what her kindergarten experience was going to be like, fear because I don’t want to make the wrong decision for her.

At the end of pulling apart my thoughts and moving through my fears, I think my friend Jen said it best, “you will be giving her an amazing gift.”

I’ll let you know later if we give her that gift or not.

Tales of a Preschool fibster

I’ve been hearing quite the stories from Miss PJ after school over the past few weeks. She tells tails of kids getting in trouble for not including others in their play, kids getting time outs for not being nice and still others being spoken to for just plain old ill behavior.

As we were talking I started to inquire if any of these kids just so happened to be her. “OH NO” she said and went to list four or five classmates that clearly were misbehaving in school, each with their own story.

Seeing that “we” happened to have a few problems with including others in the past, it was not too off the mark for me to think that she was projecting. So last week I told the teacher of PJ’s exciting tales, what she was saying and that I was wondering if it happened to be her and not her classmates at all.

That sweet teacher looked at me, shook her head and said, “Yeah, she’s been having some problems with that.” And then proceed to give us some new reading materials:

Share and Take Turns
Join In and Play
Talk and Work It Out

I decided to add Be Polite and Kind and the one on manners while I was at it.

Can’t hurt, right?

A snap shot of our day together

As I was up on the ladder trying to wash some windows PJ was picking hydrangea leaves and singing:

I loooooooove my daaa-aaa-deeeee. I loooooove my maaaa-aaa-maaaa…but not toooooooodaaaaaaaay.

Kid quote of the day

If I had a tail…I’d wag it.

Life is always better with friends

PJ started her first day of school yesterday. She went back for her 1st day of her 2nd year of preschool

She is in a class of 13 girls and 1 boy. Could you imagine???

I met ¾ of the girls last year. I met Dante and his parents yesterday. They are either going to pull him out of there as fast as they can or he will be the boy with the “golden ticket” once he realizes the knowledge he could gain. This experience alone may make him the one male on the planet that “knows” women, especially four year old girls.

Donned with a smile, bright pink and more glitter than you could possibly imagine on any one clothing item, PJ faced her first day.

As I walked out of the room, there she sat, sandwiched between friends.

As I drove back into the parking lot I initially couldn’t spot her on the playground. Then I saw them, a whole group of them, lined up in the tunnel sharing secrets, and giggles and friendship on the playground.

How lucky they are.