Five for Friday - Saturday Edition

1. Veronica IS going to go to the preschool where Maria is going next year.  The spot was available and THEY called ME, so I figured why not.  I thought about it and I thought maybe Veronica would like to be where she is going to be in Kindergarten before she gets there.  Plus maybe some kids she'll go to Preschool with will also be going to Kindergarten and that would be nice, right?  Maria is annoyed that no one that she attends preschool with is going to St. Joan of Arc, so maybe I could circumvent that with Veronica, I figured.  Also, last night I was talking with some friends of mine and their middle child, their son, just graduated from eighth grade and one girl from his class and he have been together since preschool and now they're off to high school together.  So that seems like a nice thing.  We'll see.  
2. Veronica started back to her little preschool summer camp thing this week and it went well.  She also did well in Vacation Bible School, oh you should hear her sing some of those songs, it's adorable.  She sings LUSTILY, no matter what it is - "A, B, C, D, E, F, G!", she'll sing like Bonnie Raitt or Etta James or something, it's hilarious.  From VBS she sings "Soon and very soon, we are gonna see the King, soon and very soon, we are gonna see the king!".  She's adorable. 
3. She will not shut up.  The other day she said to me, remember when I was little and I didn't talk? I said yes, I remember and she said not now!  Now I can talk and talk!   I said I KNOW!  IIIIIII KNOOOOOOW!  
4. She gets really mad, really mad lately when her needs are not immediately met.  I wonder where she gets that from?  Ha ha just kidding, we all know where that example is set.  We are working on it.  We don't have terrible twos around here as much as terrible threes and (not) fun fours.  
5. She had her ballet recital and did very well.  She is a good listener.  Well, not here but for everyone else.  

Five for Friday - Sunday Edition

1. There might be a spot available in the preschool where Maria is going to school this year, but I think I'm going to stick with the plan where Veronica stays where she is.  I think it will be good for her to stay on her own and she can just go to St. Joan of Arc next year.  This way she can do all the stuff Maria did this year - field trips and Carols and Cocoa and Muffins with Mom.  I think it will be okay like this, even though it's tempting to send her with Maria so I could just have two schools and not three.  OH well, what else do we have to do but drive around, me and Felicity?  
2. Veronica sometimes wakes up in the night all fevery and then she is fine the next day.  Last week she threw up twice on Monday night and then was fine on Tuesday, then fevery again on Wednesday night.  What the hell?  What is that?  
3. She is so cute when she sings - she sings Twinkle Twinkle and also a song from the Barbie movie Princess and the Pop Star.  She sings lustily and it's adorable.  Today we heard a song on her cd that we play in the car, and I was singing it kind of absent mindedly and Veronica said "Mom.  That song is over now".  Ha!  
4. She's getting pretty good at riding her bike, although yesterday I went to take a walk with Maria and Veronica, they were both on scooters and Veronica fell and cut her leg before we even left the front of our house!  She is a pain.  She's getting better, though, as I said.  
5. They have two days of school this week and then they're finished for the summer.  Except in just two weeks they start back at preschool camp on Wednesdays, for June and July, and they'll go to Vacation Bible School and also start swimming.  I hope the summer flies by.  

Four Years Old

It's kind of crazy that Veronica is four, right?  That in about four years we went from this:

to this:

Crazy, right?  She's come a long way, baby!  Here's something I wrote to Veronica, when I was pregnant with her and before I knew that she was a girl, let alone a Veronica:

Dear Baby,

Your father and I just found out about you yesterday! I immediately looked up on the Internet how big you were and it said you were as big as a sesame seed! A sesame seed! That's really small. We were so surprised that you were here already, since Maria, your older sister, is just 8 months old! But right away I loved you - I love you so much bigger than the size of you. We are already thinking of names, and worrying about you, and planning on where you'll sleep! So I just want to say right now, on September 22, 2008, that I love you already. I love you, whoever you are. And no matter what happens, if you are a boy or a girl, if you are colicky or not, sick or healthy, I love you and I promise I will take care of you.

With love from,
Your Mother

So.  I think we can safely say that I have kept my promise, ha!  Here she is, four years old, doing just fine, well taken care of.  She is a good and sweet four year old.  She is smart and she is going to do just great this year in preschool, all by her damn self.  I feel excited and happy for her future.  Happy birthday to Veronica!  

Five on Friday

• Veronica rode a horse this week.  It was a pony, maybe, or a miniature horse, but still - she just stood online and then it was her turn and she jumped up and rode that horse!  I was very proud of her, she is getting less and less afraid.  She's not completely over her fear of animals, today she wanted me to carry her to the car because there was a small but loud dog in another CAR, but mostly she is doing okay with it.  It gives me hope that if we get a helper dog for Anthony, she won't be miserable every day of her life.  
• She's going to be four on Tuesday, isn't that crazy?  It is to me.  She is very excited about her birthday, she's telling everyone.  
• We are just having family over on Sunday afternoon to have some cake and celebrate.  I don't want to do a big party until they are five, but it's been hard to stick to, especially since Maria was just five and we just had a big party for her.  Veronica keeps telling me to invite people, just adding to the list, she is crazy.  We'll see, maybe she'll be mad on Sunday but my guess is that she'll just be happy people are here to celebrate her and she won't worry about her school friends who aren't here.  
• She is going to go to preschool three days again next year, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  What will she be like without Maria there?  I can't wait to see.  
• Yesterday she had to come home early from her day of fun with my Mom.  She was burning up and passed out on my chest for an hour.  Today she has kind of a rash on her chest, what is up with that?  She seems fine, she never had symptoms.  Can you get a fever from being tired?  It's weird, right?  
• SIX (!) - except for that yesterday, she's been fine, sweet and cute, as usual.  I'll take them to see the pediatrician here soon for Veronica's four year checkup and Maria's fifth.  I can't believe she's going to be four but it really does feel like she's been here forever.  

Five Things on Friday

1.  Last night, after her bath, Veronica found a brown marker and drew stripes all over herself.  She was a tiger, she said.  Maria immediately copied her, which was a pain because I had JUST CLEANED BOTH OF THEM, but it was nice because it's rare that Veronica instigates something.

2.  Veronica will be four in three weeks!  She wants a Tinkerbell bicycle.  I have to find one for her.  We are not having a big party, just cake and stuff with our family.  I want to try and stick to just big parties for 5, 10 and 15.  We'll see.

3.  This morning, Veronica is demanding ice cream and so far I'm winning.  For a sweet girl, she can be a real jerk about some things.  I told her you can't have ice cream at 10:30 in the morning! Can I have it for dessert?  For after dinner?, she asked and I said maybe.  So I said how about some cereal and she said yes.  I set her up with cereal and milk and a bowl and spoon and she ate and then she said I'm ready for dessert, mama, and she was FURIOUS when I said no.  Sheesh.

4.  Okay, now it's Saturday but I am going to press on.  Yesterday, my friend Jill came over and I helped her with her resume, then she stayed here with V and F while I took M to the store for a birthday present and then dropped her at a birthday party, then I got lunch for Jill and me and then we ate said lunch and we had to go BACK to get Maria at the party and then we came back here and played outside for a while and then I had to get ready and go to work. So.  Anyways it's Saturday.  Veronica is good with Jill, or with any babysitters.  She is not strange at all with her teachers or anything.  That is a far cry from how she was when I used to drop her at the Childwatch at the Y, and I'm grateful for it.

5.  She is getting kind of funny.  She has a good sense of humor for a three/four year old, which is to say that it's not really ACTUALLY funny, but she definitely gets the idea of it.  She loves to make people laugh, it's cute.  She and Maria have been going to Anthony's school on Monday and being peer role models and while Maria is like a behaviorist or something, Veronica is just happy to be there and be playing with the kids and have her hair done.  There was an intern there named Courtney who just LOVED Veronica and Veronica loved her, and Courtney's last day was Friday so they had a big goodbye this week.  Yesterday I had Maria and Veronica sign a thank you note and Maria wrote her name and Veronica's name but then Veronica wanted to write her own name.  She carefully wrote a V and then and E and R and then she said "I'm done".  Ha!  Keep them wanting more, I told her.

Irony

Is it irony that we thought Veronica would never talk and now she never, ever shuts up?  She gets on a roll, it's crazy when she does, where she just talks and talks and talks.  It's different than Maria, when Veronica does it, she requires a lot from the other person. Maria will blather on and you don't really have to be 100% there, but Veronica is always all, right, Mama?  Do you think so, Mama?  DID YOU HEAR ME, MAMA?  I almost always call Mike on the way home from picking up Anthony, but yesterday I didn't.  He asked me why later and I said I couldn't stop talking to Veronica!  It's so weird!

She has had a rough week.  On Monday, she didn't want to go back to school.  She had a week off and last time she had a week off, well, three, she went back and there was a different teacher.  She likes the new teacher a lot but I think it's been hard for her.  But she went back and it was fine but then on Tuesday I got an incident report, someone had hit her in the face with a block!  It said that Veronica had refused an ice pack, ha!  Tough guy!  I asked her later who it was and she told me, it was a boy who has some - well, I don't want to say problems but he's just a rougher kid than Veronica.  Anyway, she was fine and it was unpleasant but I suppose it happens.  It's never, it should be noted, happened to Maria, but she is a little louder and scarier than Veronica, probably.

Otherwise, she's fine, dancing away in ballet, having friends at school, being too noisy in church.  I can't believe she'll be four next month.  Four!  Little Veronica.  I'd say Time Flies but I don't believe it.

Speech

Veronica says a lot of words funkily, because of the L thing.  I forget where I was with her the other day, but the adult I was with said "so ... R is L?" and I said yes, R is L and Y is L and sometimes W is L!  But one thing Veronica won't tolerate is YOU saying anything the way she does.  Two words that she says really adorably are school and beautiful.  She says things are beautiful all the time but it sounds like bluetiflu.  It is a nice sound, really, it's too bad it's not a word.  Bluetiflu.  When she says school is sounds like skewool.  She says school a lot too, because we talk about it a lot when we talk about their schedule and we are ALWAYS talking about our schedule with Maria around.

Anyway, tonight I was lying in bed with Veronica right after I put the baby to bed.  Normally I don't go in and I never lie down but I felt bad for her because Maria was being a jerk and not letting Veronica get into bed with her.  "I need my rest because I'm still a little sad from before", she kept saying, which, whatever, Maria.  Enough about her it's not her blog, ha!  So I was lying down with Veronica and telling her what a fun week we had planned, I said how she'd be going to school tomorrow, only I said it skew-wool, like she does and she cut her eyes at me and said "I think you mean SKEW-WOOL, Mom".  But in her mind, she doesn't think she's saying it strangely.  I think she feels like we're making fun of her and I totally don't want to do that, I mean - I am laughing with her but not at her.  But she is not laughing, so I have to remember not to do it.

She has a playdate on Friday, it's super exciting, old Veevsy with her friends on her own.  She had her little ballet recital on Friday and she'll start again in two weeks.  She is a sweet and cute ballerina.  She's a sweet and cute everything.