Rite of Passage

LaLa had her first daycare experience today! With Granny Nanny (and my dad) frolicking in South America for three weeks, other arrangements had to be made so I could write--so she went to "Mommy's Morning Out" at our beloved neighborhood playroom. Since LaLa plays at the playroom all the time, it was no big shakes to her. She was just playing with someone else's mom.

Which must have been pretty glamorous because she had more fun than that time that I let her loose on a double-scoop of chocolate ice cream. She was the life of the party. A friend called me from the playroom to tell me how fabulously she was behaving and how much fun she was having and how not one tear was shed during the entire four hours she was there. She even ate all her lunch!

And thus begins that phenomenon of your child being so much better at school than she is at home.

Not that LaLa isn't a delight at home. But "perfect," as my friend put it? Not so much.

I guess we're doing a good thing by signing her up for pre-school tomorrow morning. Tomorrow at SIX in the morning. Yes, it's one of those schools that everyone is clamoring to get into, thus forcing parents to camp out in the wee hours to get one of the coveted slots. . .

Okay, I now realize why I don't blog very often. Everything you just read? That was written on FRIDAY. Now it's Monday (afternoon) and I'm just re-opening this screen and realizing I never got a chance to finish my blog. I guess that also means my web browser was open all weekend on this one screen. That's probably not good, is it?

Anyway, I'm still recovering from this weekend, which was all about LaLa cheerfully flogging us to exhaustion. First there was the the ridiculous preschool registration camp-out, mentioned above (yes, on Friday). The only fun thing about it was bonding with all the other parents in line about how ridiculous it was that we were all camping out for preschool registration. Yet, there we all were, camping out. And not budging. One. Inch. LaLa got her precious slot in the "sparrows" class, by the way. I think just about everybody in line got in, which sort of rendered the camping out thing moot. But oh well, it's a parental sacrifice story we can use to make LaLa feel guilty some day--and that's gold, is it not?

Oh, I'm KIDDING.

On Sunday, we went to one of those birthday parties. Yes, one THOSE birthday parties. It was at a very strange sort of Sino-Mexican Chuck E. Cheese knock-off, called Pandy's Magical World. There were giant bouncy structures to jump in (I actually liked these quite a lot, especially the steep, undulating SLIDE) and a tiny train and skee-ball and animatronic blue pandas playing harmonicas and bad pizza and a giant, very shmutzy plush panda that sang happy birthday and a pinata and goody bags and . . . suffice to say, LaLa was so happy after this extravaganza (did I mention that the cake was bright pink?) that she basically spent the rest of the day twirling and squealing, squealing and twirling. This morning she woke up at 5:30 to tell us more about The Party.

And then we went to pick up her favorite person on earth--her cousin Adam--for a sleepover. I expect more twirling and squealing any moment now.

All of which, of course, makes me unspeakably happy. Sure, LaLa is starting to really wear me out (to quote Olivia's mom. But what that's a sign of is the end of babyhood and the beginning of childhood and that's a weird, bittersweet, but mostly GOOD thing.

Speaking of good things (to quote Martha), Paula Chase has a new book out and my next blog (within the next few days, I promise) will be all about it--and her!

See you then!

xoxo

Elizabeth

Comments

[Sy Alexander]

Hi Elizabth,

How's your next book coming? Hope to see you at the library soon.

This books sounds fantatistic.