On the first day of school, my daughter gave to me ...

... time to take a long shower, vacuum all the carpets, wash the kitchen floor, finish canning barbecue sauce, clean up the kitchen, clean up the house, harvest a bunch of vegetables, and go out to fancy lunch with a friend.

But enough about me - the first day of school is about the kid, right?

Liza was sort of nervous about going in to school today, despite the fact that she's in the same school building, has met her teacher multiple times and thinks he's really cool, had a chance to set up her desk, and met (and held) Murray the classroom pet lizard.  Heck, on open house day we even found out her desk is right NEXT to Murray - and the unnamed hermit crabs - which is the coolest thing ever if you're in first grade (and aren't squicked out by lizards), according to Liza.

And yet still with the anxiety and the not sleeping and the waking me up five times last night and the not wanting to get out of bed this morning.  Hooray for acting like a normal kid on the night before a big event!  No tears, and she walked down to the bus stop and got on the bus like a trooper.

She'll be home in about an hour, and I can't wait to hear how it went.  She might not get around to talking about it until 8pm, but it'll come out eventually :)

Life's a beach

Last week Jason was out of town, so Liza and I high-tailed it to the East Coast to visit family.  One of the highlights was a trip to Ocean City, Maryland, with my in-laws and two of Liza's cousins.  We hit one of the amusement ride places on the boardwalk, which Liza remembered from her visit last year.

Unfortunately, Liza and Chloe were too tall to ride most of the attractions that were open when we first arrived, so we had some time to kill on the (hot, sweaty) boardwalk before the "big kid" rides opened.

After obligatory stops at the baby rollercoaster, the girls decided to go on the "Freak Out," which is sort of a spinning pendulum thingee.  Liza has been dying to go on a similar ride at Cedar Point, but she's not tall enough, so she was thrilled to be big enough for this version.

Not sure if she'd be so thrilled once the ride was in progress ...

Looks like she survived with her spirit intact.

So intact, in fact, that the girls went on it four more times in a row.

Another favorite was the funhouse, which the girls ran through at top speed while the grownups sat in the shade.

I bought a few tickets so I could go on some of the better rides, but got suckered into using some of them to go through my first mirror maze.  Um, yay?

Liza liked the looping, corkscrewing, then-let's-do-it-again-backwards coaster so much that she rode it a second time (without me, in the front seat).  Can you tell she's just barely tall enough for the ride?

Later in the afternoon we stopped for pizza and sodas with curly straws, which were roundly enjoyed by all.

We made it back to my mother-in-law's house before dark, which was excellent for the photographer in the family.  The mosquitoes even gave me a few minutes' peace before they attacked with a vengeance ...

Meanwhile, the cousins and their matching pajamas found the supply of fancy hats and started making up an elaborate story involving maids and artists and a cartoon monkey.

The next day we headed for the beach, stopping along with every other tourist in the state to see the wild ponies on Chincoteague Island.

Despite really high surf and rip tide warnings (stupid hurricane), the girls managed to get in some "surfing."

Best part of the day?  Taking over the deluxe giant hole that some boys had dug in the beach earlier in the day.  It was the size of a hot tub, complete with seats built into the walls.

All in all, a good time was had by all, and we can't wait to do it again.  Maybe next time we can get the cousins to visit us at our beach and go to our amusement park ...

Another step toward making myself obsolete

My teaching process:

1. At age 5, attempt to show her how to do it; she ignores me completely.
2. Prior to kindergarten, borrow the book from a friend and help her work through it a couple of times; duck when she throws the book across the room and vows to never wear shoes again.
3. Buy her a pair of velcro sneakers because face it, her kindergarten teacher has better things to do than retie her shoes for her four times every day.
4. At age 6.25, when she's in a crafty mood anyway, haul the book out again and help her work through it a couple of times; duck when she throws the book at my head.
5. The same day, offer to show her a technique that's different from how the book teaches you ("around the tree" vs. "bunny ears"), and demonstrate it in slow motion several times.
6. Let her practice a few times by doing part of the motion while I do the rest.
7. Let her practice on her own, stepping in to straighten things out when they go wrong.
8. Let her practice on her own, with verbal help when things go wrong.
9. Let her practice on her own with no help.
10. Wander off and eat a sandwich or something while she ties All The Things into bows.

Next lesson: Make me some brownies and a milkshake!

Remember this week

This was the week I ...

- became the mother of a rising first-grader

- took a road trip with a good friend

- worked with my daughter to produce hundreds of yards of cord to "yarnbomb" my craft camp

- learned to make my own blocks for printing

- discovered the power of the flying purple olive of doom

- saw this, and felt something inside me unclench

- evicted silkworms from their cocoons and used them to make yarn 

- taught my daughter some of the skills I learned at Squam

- confirmed that my daughter is 48" tall, so I don't have to ride this thing over and over and over every time we go to Cedar Point

- was constantly impressed by the thoughtfulness, flexibility, humor, bravery, smarts, and maturity shown by my daughter.

It's been a good week, and I'm really hoping that this is what I remember about the summer, not whatever disagreements and grumpiness are sure to occur at some point over the next few months.  My heart is full, I am happy, and I can't wait to see how long we can keep this up.

Okay, this one actually isn't too terrible

Remember the Christmas concert?  Well, in order to get the full grade school experiences, Liza's school does a spring concert, as well.  It was mercifully shorter than the winter concert, and somewhere along the way this year most of the classes found a bucket in which to carry a tune, so it wasn't as painful, either.

The kindergarten and first grade kids performed songs from "Barnyard Moosical," with each class taking the part of a different animal.  Costumes were easy - try to dress vaguely like a farmer,

... and put on a chicken headband right before you go on stage.

Liza's been running around singing her performance song for the past few weeks, so we already knew it was going to be a cute song ... but when you get 22 kids up there doing the Funky Chicken Strut, the cute increases exponentially.

Isn't that impressive?  You can actually understand many of the words they're singing!  Way to go, 5- and 6-year-olds!

I parent with a wooden spoon in hand

I thought we were past all of this, I really did.

Then a few months ago the dentist mentioned that he could see Liza's 6-year molars coming in.  Liza was all excited because these are the first permanent teeth she'll have, ones that won't fall out sometime during grade school (unless she keeps eating Reese's peanut butter cups at every meal and/or gets in a really good fistfight).

My reaction: Oh, crud, here we go again.

At least this time we can reason with her, right?

Yeah, that's not working out so well.

So far we've had the standard baby-teething symptoms, now in a new, bigger, louder, more understandable package.  Highlights of the past week:

• snot
• post-nasal drip
• gum pain
• bleeding gums
• headaches
• crankiness
• irritability

This all came to a head Friday night, when I got to spend the hour before I managed to get her to sleep with her on my lap, crying and snotting all over my shirt and wailing about how much her gums hurt and how she didn't really need teeth anyway and she just wants it to STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP.  She had already used her fluoride rinse and couldn't eat or drink anything for half an hour, so most of the usual "teething" soothers were out of the question.  I gave her an ice cube to crunch on, but she didn't want that because the dentist who came to their school said that chewing ice is bad for your teeth.  Bet he doesn't have to deal with teething 6-year-olds at 10 pm much, or he'd rethink that bit of advice.

Anyway, with all of the baby teething toys long gone, all I could come up with was ... the handle of a wooden spoon that's so old it couldn't splinter if it wanted to.  So I gave her the spoon, tucked her in bed, and 10 minutes later the spoon handle was covered in tooth marks and she was sound asleep. 

I'm hoping she gets over this quick, as there could be definite downsides to using spoons as teethers for big kids:

Srsly, I've been sort of busy lately

You can read more about the epic Angry Birds party preparations here.  And here.  Also here.  And did I mention here?  I told you it was epic!

Also, please start humming "Sunrise, Sunset" while perusing the following photos:

5th birthday: http://mind-flush.blogspot.com/2010/05/thank-goodness-rain-held-off.html

4th birthday: http://mind-flush.blogspot.com/2009/05/whew.html

3rd birthday: http://mind-flush.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-partying.html

2nd birthday: http://mind-flush.blogspot.com/2007/05/taking-advantage-of-dsl-birthday-pics.html

1st birthday: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9047701054124759441#