Star of the Week - Day 1

Hooray!  Hooray!  After a long wait, it has finally arrived!

Julia is officially Star of the Week in kindergarten.  To celebrate Day 1 of her important role, she got to bring in her "All About Me" poster to share facts about herself with the class.

I'm sure many of you can imagine the manic state of barely-contained excitement she was in all morning, waiting desperately for 12:05 so she could go to school.  In fact, despite the time change, she and Madeleine were up bright and early this morning, and thanks to both Julia's Star of the Week hyper-elation and Madeleine's current obsession with "The Lion King," the girls decided to morph into lions.  What better way to wake up early in the morning than by having lion cubs climb onto the bed and scramble around back and forth on all fours, crawling over my body multiple times in their lion chase?

As the time for school neared, Julia couldn't hold in her excited energy any longer, so as she galloped around the living and dining rooms, she felt the need to exclaim to me, "Mom?  Do I just LOOK like a girl who's SO EXCITED about being Star of the Week???"

Once we got to school and sat with other kids and moms in the Kindergarten Meeting Area, waiting for Julia's teacher to come pick up the afternoon kids, Julia turned ALL weirdo-excited on me.  Complete with this sort of stuff:

JULIA: (loudly, supposedly to me, but making sure all the parents and kids around could hear her) YOUR name is Quaw-Quee Clark!
ME: Mmm-hmm.  Yup, I know that's your silly nickname.  (trying to deflect the topic) Hey, Madeleine, come sit over with me.
JULIA: No, it's YOUR nickname, Mom.  YOU'RE Quaw-Quee Clark!  That's YOUR name!  My mommy is QUAW-QUEE CLARK.
ME: You're silly.  Hey, Julia, let me see something on your poster.
JULIA: You are QUAW-QUEE CLARK.  My.  mommy. is.  QUAW.  QUEE.  CLARK.

There was just no covering it up.

Needless to say, Julia was floating on Cloud Nine as we walked (skipped/galloped/ran) home from school later this afternoon.  And it's only Day 1 of her Star of the Week reign!  Madeleine, for her part, was also full of exuberant energy as we walked over to pick up Julia.  Madeleine was Simba the whole way there.  As she loped along in her graceless, head-heavy stumble-run, she would continually call back Lion King dialogue to me (I was Nala), managing to face-plant not once but TWICE on the sidewalk.  No fur off her back, however; she was up and running without a second thought.

We also got to have this awesome discussion:
MADELEINE: Mom?  Do you think I look like a BOY?  I look like a boy because - I *AM* a boy!
ME: You're a boy?
MADELEINE: Yeah!
ME: Do you have a penis?
MADELEINE: Yes!  I do!
ME: No.  You don't.  You have a vagina, just like Julia, and just like me.  We're all girls.
MADELEINE: But...uh...no, I'm Simba.
ME: Ohhhh, you're a boy because you're being Simba.  I get it.
MADELEINE: But.  Mom.  Boy lions don't HAVE a penis.
ME: Actually, they do.  All mammals do.
MADELEINE: Mom.  No they DON'T.
ME: They really do, honey.
MADELEINE: Mom.  Kid boy lions DON'T have a penis.  Only GROWN-UP boy lions have a penis.
ME: Oh.  What makes you the expert?
MADELEINE: Because!  They DON'T.

Yes they do.

On a completely unrelated note, here's a video of the girls covering one of their favorite Beatles tunes:


I wonder if the Rich Man sees kid boy lions with no penises when he goes to retrieve his big brown bag from the zoo.