Welcome to Kindergarten, Hannah

Here they are, waiting to go.

A close up of Hannah. See how happy she is to go to Kindergarten?

They mailed home this letter with these goofy stickers. The sticker would coordinate with the teacher's big goofy sign. Hannah had a big orange number two sticker.

"Oh look, you have a goofy orange number two on your shirt too! We must be in the same class."

We had to wait in line to enter the building.

Once inside, I wanted her to pose again. She was too distracted and excited to stay still. Then the batteries to my camera died before I got a picture of her in line with her class and teacher. Phooey.

_____________________________________

Tonight she told me all about school. She made a cupcake and put it on her birth date. "So, when is your birthday, Hannah?" I asked.
"June 30th," she replied.
"No it's NOT," answered Ruthie. "It's the 18th!"
"Oh yeah. I forgot," Hannah giggled.
"So then, what else did you do today?" I asked.
"I sat on the big blue carpet and we talked about our family and pets," she said.
"Do you have a locker?"
"Yes, and a cubbie."
"What was your special?"
"Computers. I played a game with bugs in it."
"How was lunch?"
"Good. I wasn't very thirsty though."
"Did you make any friends?"
"Yeah. One girl."
"What was her name?"
"I don't remember. But I sat next to her at lunch."
Sounds like she had a very good first day. She's looking forward to going back tomorrow.

You know you need to go grocery shopping when...

"Mama, there's nothing for breakfast," Hannah lamented

"I see some KIX down there," I replied.

"I don't really like those, and we're out of bread, so I can't have that either," she pointed out to me.

"Well," I answered, being more tolerant and agreeable than usual with a five year old, "You could have one of my granola bars."

"They're peanut butter. I don't like peanut butter," she stated matter-of-factly.

We walked away from the cabinets and over to the refrigerator. I opened the door and noticed the American cheese on the shelf. "How about cheese?" I offered.

Hannah considered it for a moment and then decided against the cheese. I didn't blame her. How well could American cheese hold a five year old tummy over to lunch anyhow? That's when I spotted the bag of left-over rice from dinner.

"How about some rice?"

"YEAH! RICE! yeah! yeah!" Hannah danced as I spooned the rice into a bowl. While the rice microwaved she repeated in a hushed voice, "yeah rice. Yeah. yeah. yeah Rice! yeah. yeah. Yeah RICE! yeah. yeah." The microwaved beeped and she said, "You'll put butter on it for me, won't you? I really like it with butter."

"Sure, baby. I'll put whatever butter I can scrape off of this wrapper," I replied while trying to get every last inch of butter on to the spoon. "Let me see if there is more butter in the fridge." I saw a carton, but alas no butter. Why doesn't anyone throw away the empty containers around here? I thought to myself. "How about some of Mama's special butter? mmmmm...." I said trying to convince her that my Dairy Free, Lactose Free, Trans-Fat Free Earth Balance spread was just as yummy.

"Sure," she replied without blinking. She danced all the way to the table. "Rice. Riiiiiiiice. Rice. Riiiiiiiiiiice. Rice. I like rice. I love rice. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! YAY RICE!" Hannah sang. Hannah makes songs for all of her favorite things. I was not surprised to hear the "Rice" song.

She ate contently and then got down from the table. "Go get dressed and brush your teeth," I commanded. I walked over to the table to get her bowl and put it in the sink. Unlike when she eats cereal and wastes a good deal of the milk and cereal, her bowl was practically licked clean. The girl loves her rice.

Those were the days my friend...

My folks are moving. We helped clean out their house a bit. Still a long way to go. I didn't realize I had packed away my childhood and left it in their attic. Seriously. I'd almost venture to say that a little less than half of the boxes were my childhood crap...books, letters, toys, even.

So, today I started going through this box of letters. First, I discovered all of my former relationships were documented through letters...both in friendships and romance. Eeks! Why oh why did I save them?

I haven't even really read any of the letters, but the most exciting find of the day was the very first letter the Jeremy ever wrote to me from Basic training. Yeah, I still can't read his handwriting. But what I could read, I laughed all the more. Ah, the memories. I'm smiling just thinking about it. He was in love with me, and I was not interested. But I remember being thrilled to receive that first letter.

Then I found a letter from Grandma while I was away at camp. It nearly broke me. I didn't realize I still had something with her handwriting on it. I know it's been almost fourteen years since she passed, but still some days I miss her so much. I couldn't read it. It was almost too much just to look at it.

Some other fun finds through my crap: my etcha-sketch animators. Oh man, did I love these. The kids put batteries into them and have been having fun playing with them. I figured out how to work the one animator. I'd have to re-read the manual for the more advanced model. Anyway, I showed Ruth how to use the more basic one, and she picked it up relatively well. But boy did it stretch my memory trying to figure out how to make it work. Yay for good memories!

Then there was the sound studio toy that I had wanted. I was probably too old for such a toy, but I still wanted it and I still had fun with it. I handed that to the kids too. Actually, I gave it to Hannah since Ruth already has a Karaoke machine. Joshua found some D batteries (he is the "battery king" after all) and they've been having a blast with it. I forgot how annoying the dumb sound effects are.

The other stuff I had packed away were my dolls and barbies and books. Lots and lots of books. The kids have been enjoying reading the books I read as a kid. I didn't keep them all, just the ones I thought they'd be interested in. We also divided up the board games. I look forward to playing some of them with my kids. However, my mom insisted I take the National Geographic Global Pursuit game with us because the Jeremy "Would really enjoy it" I protested, "NOOOOOOOOooo! He'll make me play it with hiiiiimmmmmmmmmm! Ahhhhhhhhhh!" And for that matter, we took the 80's edition of Trivial Pursuit.

Also, I found the quilt that belongs to the rope bed I inherited from the afore mentioned Grandma along with some of her knitting yarns. And we haven't even gotten through my parent's basement. Ah to be a packrat...