The calendar

Looking at my calendar while thinking ahead a wee bit:

Next week- yes, NEXT week- I register Katie for kindergarten. I might need an anti-depressant to keep it together that day. I just can’t believe it. Really.

And a mere six months away, Zuzu turns three. This will be no regular birthday. At three, our sweet girl ages out of the early childhood intervention services that have provided her with the therapy she’s received. In August, we start meeting with the school district for assessment to see if she qualifies for the preschool that will ensure she continues therapy.

Besides the fact that my kiddo is getting older, why does this make me so anxious? Because she’s progressing so much lately, I’m worried she WON’T qualify for PPCD and fall into a services gap between her 3rd birthday and kindergarten. That’s nearly three years and I don’t want to lose ground on all the amazing, mind-blowing progress she’s made with the help of our therapists.

I’ve talked to her therapists about this and they all say my worries are well-founded: They’ve all seen kids fall into the cracks because they don’t have any *educational* needs at three, despite requiring further therapy that only private insurance can provide. It’s very likely that that may be Zuzu, even though she will definitely need further work to fine-tune her gross and fine motor skills and her language development.

I’ve also discussed a few other things with our therapists the past few days, some things we’ll have to keep an eye on with Zuzu. It’s nothing I’m terribly worried about, just some glitchy things that Zuzu does that could be two year-old behavior or…not. We have neurology and opthalmology appointments coming up that may provide some answers.

Allow me to pat myself on the back

The garden is doing great! I worry constantly though, and oscillate between exhilaration that I’ll have loads and loads of tomatoes to can and slice and eat and cook with soon and despair that they may not make it off the vine or go bad before I can do what I want with them. I finally got the hot and bell pepper seedlings and the final roma and San Marzano seedlings in the ground. I sprayed the peppers and some of the other plants with an epsom salt mixture…now I worry that I mixed it too strong or that there’s remnant of herbicide from the last time we used the sprayer years ago. And last: we put cages around most of the tomatoes tonight. I have no idea if the cages will help or hurt my plants. But if I see my plants begin to wilt, those babies are coming off.

…I also wanted to fool around with my new camera. I’m still getting used to a new lens.

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Zuzu’s “Spring Sing” at preschool was this morning. She did GREAT! And by great, I mean she stood there, quietly, nice and still, with her hands folded on her tummy, completely unperturbed or impressed with any of it…until they tried to send the little kids back to their classroom to play after singing “Hot Potato.” She had spotted us and lost it when she thought she couldn’t come to us. And Katie lost it, too, because she wanted her sister. So, we flew down stairs and rescued our little girl.

Saturday and my new camera

Testing 1, 2, 3

My new camera came today! New pictures!

Home

From Florida:

First view of the beach

She wasn’t too wild about it

Sand angels!

And this describes how Zuzu felt about the beach.

Sunny Florida

Katie loves it all. She loves standing where the water breaks on the shore. Zuzu…not so much. She loves filling her bucket with water, then filling that with sand…until she decided she did like the water, ran to it, and dove in head first. The sand threw Zuzu for a loop for awhile. She kept dusting the sand off her feet as she sat in it. Then, she started covering her legs with it. Katie could play at the water’s edge all day. But, all in all, a great time so far.

New ‘do

Zuzu’s hair, which has been epic since the moment of her birth, needed to be cut. It was always in her way and lately, it’s been getting stuck under her runny nose. Like, all the time. So, we chopped it off this afternoon.

I’m no hairdresser. But dang, she’s still cute.

And then, Eric got the girls to make silly faces. See?

Yep. They’re in there with him, “helping” him pack for his week-long trip.

It’ll be an interesting week…

Exorcising demons

Katie just had a meltdown, the likes of which ONLY occur after she parts ways with bff in the afternoon. If you know me at all in real life, you know how much I’ve been worried and stressed about the influence of bff and her family the past three months. Bff is a budding sociopath, I shit you not.

Today was no regular play day, though. I had arranged a first playdate with the family down the street that I knew has a little girl starting kindergarten in the fall with Katie and bff. The mom and her two little girls came down here and before long, Katie asked if they could also play with bff. I said yes, and before long, the usual bullshit started happening: bff excluding Katie, running off with the other kid here to play, and just being the horrible playmate I have only dreamt my child would never come across because I knew too many of them as a kid.

But as I talked to this mom, she confirmed that she, too, had had negative experiences with this family. And that made me feel SO MUCH BETTER knowing that I was not, in fact, crazy.

Then, our new friends went home and, after playing with bff a little while longer, we had to go inside so I could make dinner. And that’s when the usual post-bff freakout began.

But this time, I realized what exactly was going on. And instead of lighting Katie up for being insubordinate and generally obnoxious, instead of explaining this poor behavior away with low blood sugar and general witching hour malaise, I tried to calm her down. I told her I understood why she was upset. And it was okay. Someone had been mean to her and hurt her feelings. She had the right to be upset. And Katie’s hurt came pouring out.

“I don’t ever, ever want to play with her AGAIN!” Katie cried.

This may be a one-day thing. I’ve been working hard with Katie lately, trying to get her to understand that she does not, in any circumstance, EVER have to stick around for someone and people who treat her bad and hurt her feelings. She may be asking to play with bff again tomorrow. She’s already letting bff know when she’s been rude- quite loudly, in fact. But I really feel like we’ve made progress and it will be that much easier for her to walk away the next time bff makes her cry. This does wonder for my heart.

This child

has been giving me a run for my money lately. If all two year-olds were the Zuzu we knew two weeks ago, I swear we’d rent them out for the endorphin high. But lo, the terrible twos have hit our household. I really feel sorry for her therapists, although her OT couldn’t stop giggling at her theatrics this morning.

Easter +

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