Today my baby girl is turning fourteen. No wait. FOUR. She’s turning four. But sometimes it sure feels like she’s turning fourteen, with the sass and the attitude and the confidence and the hilarious things that come out of her mouth. She wants a pink unicorn for Christmas – a REAL unicorn, not an imaginary unicorn. And not a purple one. A PINK one. I told her maybe Santa didn’t have room in the sleigh for a unicorn so she could maybe ask for something smaller and she agreed toy ponies would be OK for now. She’s accommodating like that.

She has asked to take tap dancing lessons now that she is four. I’m not really looking forward to all the tap dancing practice that is sure to follow, but since she stomps around “tap dancing” in her sneakers anyway it really matters very little if she’s signed up or not. Caroline loves to perform and if you ask her she will sing you a completely improvised song about a mermaid who looses her baby and then finds her again and lives happily ever after, complete with an interpretive dance, since everything includes an interpretive dance. Getting her coat on involves an interpretive dance. Brushing her teeth involves an interpretive dance. Screaming about how I ruined her life involves an interpretive dance.

Caroline is VERY excited about her birthday  plans. Tonight she and I are going to see The Nutcracker at Mohegan Sun. It looks fancy, with an orchestra and a chance to meet the dancers. I’m just as excited as she is, since I really really want her to love it. I have a very magical memory of going to see The Nutcracker when I was little and I’m hoping this can be a tradition for us on her birthday. Then Saturday we have her mermaid party. I feel less prepared than I have been in previous years (being trapped inside by the cold limits my water-based games and activities) but between a zillion different kinds of sugar to feed the kids and plans to fill the house with balloons I think the kids will have a good time. And if not Caroline can do some more interpretive dances for them.

Happy Birthday to the craziest, happiest, sweetest, bravest, most adorable little pixie mermaid ginger I know, Caroline Noelle!

Please enjoy Caroline’s 4 year old interview. Last year’s interview is here. I let her watch it just before this year, so she answered some of the questions the same to be funny, not because they’re true. She’s too stubborn to argue with though.

I asked her this morning how she liked being four, and she said “How about I try on all my shoes and see which ones fit me. Cause I’m four and four is BIG BIG BIGGER.” Sounds like a plan.

HOW can August already be over? And how can my kid already be in pre-K? And why does it always surprise me when I think about how quickly time passes? Does that ever change?

Last week was sort of the school trial-run for everyone – students, parents, teachers and bus drivers included. We had orientation on Wednesday, which was the first time Evan got to see his classroom and his teacher. I was happy to see that his class is small (15 kids), there are a lot of adults involved in each room on a daily basis and everyone we talked to knew Evan’s name. He was pretty bummed he didn’t get to stay after orientation was over. School has cool Legos.

Playing during classroom orientation

School has an ELEVATOR?! Totally the best part when you’re 4.

Thursday was the official first day that included theoretical bus riding. The town really WANTS the kids to ride the bus – as far as I know they bus almost everyone, unless you are close enough to just walk across the street – because the school is old and in a weird location (a slice of land between two semi-busy roads with very close-together houses on the other side) so they have almost no parking. Not even enough for the employees. And since they moved ALL the town pre-K classes to this one building there are a lot of buses and only one drop-off lane. Basically, it’s a mess, so the fewer parents bring their kids to the school the better.

But because they’re busing SO many kids it’s taking some time to figure out the logistics. On Thursday we were all ready to go and out front at 8:15, even though our bus is supposed to pick Evan up at 8:35. Luckily our bus stop is our front steps, so it’s not hard to hang out.

Our public schools require uniforms starting in pre-K. I love it.

He thinks holding his sign upside down is the most hilarious joke in the world.

Waiting. While they waited I weeded, because yikes.

We saw at least a dozen buses, but none of them stopped.

Waiting for the bus…that didn’t come

Aaaaaand at 8:49 (official school start time: 8:50) I tossed both kids in the car and we drove to school. I had (stupidly) scheduled a newborn photo session that morning and I needed to get going at 9 am, so I couldn’t take the chance the bus wasn’t going to show up at all. Luckily there was one drop-off parking spot open and I ran Evan up to the front door where someone whisked him off to his classroom. He was so excited to go he didn’t even look back but I was a little sad we didn’t have the “I love you, have fun!” hug moment I had imagined on our front steps as he got onto his bus.

To make myself feel worse, I didn’t make it back in time for his bus drop off either – even though they were 20 minutes late. My sitter was there, freaking out because I told her the bus came at 12:15 and there was no bus at 12:15, so I called the school on my way home to make sure Evan wasn’t sitting along in a hallway somewhere without a bus, since he didn’t take one TO school. I was imagining the bus system running like an airline, where if you miss your outgoing flight you can’t catch one back, but they assured me he was on his way. I got home 4 minutes after he did and he said “MOMMY! I rode on a FREE BUS!!!”

I was very glad we had a do-over day on Friday when Caroline and I had nowhere to be and plenty of time to wait for our bus…which came at 9:52. I’m hoping by the end of this week they’ll get here at 8:35.

Waiting for the bus again

It came!

Home from a great second day! His first question was “Do I get to go to school tomorrow?”