Saturday, August 7, 2010

A Trip to the Zoo

Originally my intention was to update the blog today with Lilly's preschool class fieldtrip to the zoo. Tons of pictures and funny little anectodes from the precious 4 year olds were planned.

Well, I chaperoned the field trip this morning. And let's just say, I have no pictures or adorable stories. Taking 30 kids, ages 2-5, is a crazy, crazy thing. Taking the public bus system, walking for blocks and blocks, and just general nutty-ness. And there weren't even any animals at the Central Park Zoo! (They must have seen us coming and ran for cover - or at least, took a nap.)

So at risk of remembering and reliving the experience, I will put it behind me.

Instead, a brief update on my Lilly. Currently she is in the bathroom. By herself. With the book "Beauty and the Beast." For the past couple weeks, she's had no accidents whatsoever - not even during naptime at school. (She was pooping and peeing on the potty regularly since she was 2, potty trained with occasional accidents since 3, and she just turned 4.)

She is a funny girl, an independent girl. Everything is "just so." She was watching Beauty and the Beast tonite. (Actually she was watching Dirty Dancing but I finally had to turn it off so then she accidentally pushed the Beauty and the Beast VHS tape into the vcr and so I figured - might as well watch my favorite movie for a bit!) She watched it for 30 minutes, and then needed to find her "Beauty and the Beast" book. We couldn't find it, but she found a book about the princesses which included Belle so she settled for that and brought it into the bathroom, hence the above paragraph.

When she was done on the toilet, she took her clothes off and got in the tub. I turned the water on, and gave her a washcloth. She washed herself, and Elmo and Ernie, and then played with her bath "letters." Then she got out of the tub, got her towel (actually got the hand towel, but I didn't correct her), dried herself, went in her room, picked out underpants and a shirt, and came out and started getting dressed. She is so precious.

She is a good little girl. She ate her apples and carrots tonite, a little bread, and a cupcake. Whoops, forgot to mention that she had the cupcake first - but she did a good job in an evaluation today and I took her out to celebrate. She is a huge cupcake fan. She sat in a little cafe eating her cupcake (just the icing, actually).

And now, she is sitting playing with all her letters. She is loving learning the alphabet, and I am loving the process as well. Today as she was getting in her Maclaren stroller on the way home from school, she pointed to the M, A, C, L, and E and told me what they were. I was amazed, I had never shown her those before. For the E she said "Elmo!" Yes Lilly, "E" as in "Elmo."

One more thing: at every school Lilly goes to, she makes friends with the oldest most popular girl in the class? And then the other girls become friends with her because of this original friendship, and Lilly becomes really popular? It happened at her schools in New Zealand and Charlottesville, and it's happened again in New York. I don't know if Lilly is strategic or just charming, but I'm certainly proud (and a little jealous!) of my little girl. The kids in her class don't look at Lilly as being different (no more than any of the kids have similarities and differences); instead they are excited to tell me that they've been to Disney World "Just like Lilly!" or to share the sign language that Lilly's just taught them. "Look, Lilly just showed me how to sign a 'B' for my name 'Bella!' " Life's lesson once again, don't worry about Lilly. She will be just fine.

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