When last we met, Pumpkin was having a hard time adjusting to her new class and new schedule. For two solid weeks I would drop her off in tears, then start my own round of tears, and we’d do it all over again when I picked her up. It was miserable.
I considered switching teachers, “holding her back” in the baby class, and even home-schooling. I tried different drop off and pick up times, I called the principal, I did everything I could think of and was getting very frustrated with my once-happy baby’s new sad outlook on school. I was settling in for a long 17 years.
Then, one morning when I dropped her off, I sat her down on the floor like I always do and saw her face start to crumble. It starts in her forehead, then her lip juts out just before those little eyes brim over with tears. Yet, this time it stopped with the lip. Right as she started to conjure up another Academy Award winning set of waterworks, Miss Lana called to me from across the room: “Don’t you believe that, she is just fine when you leave.”
As though she understood that she was found out, Pumpkin turned around somewhat reluctantly (and I swear she may have actually rolled her eyes), then she walked ever-so-slowly, head rolling from shoulder to shoulder as if to say “if I have to…” It was like a glimpse forward 14 years when I ask her to clean her room.
Every day after that it’s been the same. I see the thought cross her mind. She wants to cry just to get the best of me. But she gets in there and knows Miss Lana is on to her. So she literally DRAGS herself over to the play area. She refuses to let me see her enjoy herself. Yet every day the box on her report card is checked next to “Full of Fun”, so I know she is. Besides, I also have my obsessive-mommy-cam going at the office. So, despite her best efforts I do actually get to see her having fun.
Not only is she enjoying her class now, but she is actually learning things. Hubby and I are absolutely dumb-founded at the things she has learned in just a few short weeks. I was ready to order expensive museum glass to frame her first coloring page that was sent home (and let's not forget Project Project not so long ago - my how far she has come).
Then, wonder of all wonders, this weekend I was singing one of our all-time favorite songs “When You’re Happy and You Know It” and she clapped along like she always does. Nothing new there. That is until we got to “your face will surely show it” and she put her two fat little index fingers into those adorable dimples. I almost drove my car off the road watching in the rear view mirror. Tempting fate, I dared to go on to the second verse – somewhere we had never been. Sure enough, she stomped those little feet right on cue. At the end of the song, she made a request for “Happy, Happy”. In other words, “play it again, mama.”
Not only is she a budding prancing Picasso-Pavarotti, but now, if she sees a napkin or water bottle within reach (and whether or not the user is actually through with it) she walks it over, lifts up the garbage can lid, and deposits it right in the trash. It’s incredible. I haven’t even managed to teach Hubby that one (wink, wink).
The only recent development that I’m not sure she is learning in school (though I may be wrong) is her apparent Italian accent. I’ve gone from “ba-ba,” to “ma-ma,” to now being referred to as “mah mi” (you have to say it out loud – it rhymes with the last two syllables of salami and there is a definite rising inflection on the “mah” and a quickness to the “mi”). Not sure if they are watching foreign films in class or what, but I laugh out loud every time she calls my name (which doesn’t go over so well when she’s really wanting something).
So, things are good in the Pumpkin patch. She continues to amaze and amuse. Stay tuned for tales of Pumpkin and daddy’s adventure to Florida without mama to meet her first first cousin Ava Rae. This one is bound to be good – if only I could be a fly on the airport wall.
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