Preschool Graduate

Julia is now officially a preschool graduate!  This week has been one long party, with a pinata full of candy to celebrate the last day of school yesterday down to the end-of-the-year party this evening.  And in between, some out-of-school celebration.  Yesterday Julia and two of her best friends from school commemorated their new status as rising kindergarteners by getting their nails done at a salon in town, followed by lunch out at Bertucci's:

Snazzy nails!

And who doesn't love getting pizza for lunch?  Although Julia was inexplicably thrown by the whole "out-to-lunch" ordeal.  She tried to order pancakes, and insisted to me that she hadn't eaten breakfast yet, despite the fact that she had not only had toast and milk at home but then a morning snack and a half day of preschool.  What ever brought her to think she had suddenly just gotten out of bed and not been fed yet is beyond me.

Today was another exciting adventure, beginning with a birthday party for one of the girls in her class, to which the entire class was invited.  It was a drop-off party, but can you guess what ended up happening once the girls and I arrived at the home of Julia's friend and all the invitees were climbing into the ginormous bouncy house that was set up in the driveway?  45 minutes later, I was finally able to take Madeleine home (for the remaining 45 minutes left of party time), since thankfully the kids had all been called out of the house for a snack and juice break.  Now, I have compromised my dignity and climbed into many a kiddie bouncy house to extract Madeleine, who suffers from selective listening when in such fun contraptions, but with an entire preschool class plus many older siblings, I wasn't relishing the idea of running around on bouncy, air-mattress material chasing my 2.5-year-old around.

This evening, our whole family attended the end-of-year party at Julia's (newly former) school.  We hadn't been there more than a minute before Madeleine spied the chocolate cake, cut and laid out slice-by-slice for the taking.  However, it was completely unacceptable to her for me to feed her bites of cake while talking to the teachers and other parents.  She absolutely, whole-heartedly could not enjoy eating her cake unless she was sitting at one of the kiddie tables, so, taking matters into her own hands, she grabbed an empty kiddie chair and proceeded to plow her way across the very crowded church hall, into and around various people, until she settled upon a table she felt was fitting.  Now, mind you, she could have sat at any number of empty chairs already set out at the various tables, but then again, Madeleine only does things her own way.  And if she had her heart set on a particular chair, it doesn't matter how many toddlers and crawling babies she had to mow down on her way towards reaching her goal.

Julia and her friends were kind enough to stop prancing around for a minute to pose for a picture.  While her friends opted for goofy faces, Julia pulled out her *FIERCE* fashion model pose.  Luckily, their completely candid laughter at their expressions when I showed them the photo allowed for a very sweet photo op:

Congratulations to the graduate!  Kindergarten, here we come!... (well, in 3 months, that is...)