Picture-fest

Lots of pictures this time. I took her to have her pictures taken for her 6th birthday (will supplement with pictures from school so all immediate family will get a 5x7). I videotaped the photo shoot, not sure why I did. I did it last year, too, and no one complained. I switched my camcorder to picture mode and snapped a few poses. She looked pretty cute and I knew I was just going to get the $9.95 one-pose option. Cheating, I guess, although I don't intend to print them. Now I'm sharing my cheating with you. Oh well, don't look if you're morally opposed....

After she finished, the gal went to get them processed (and answer the phone and assist people coming in), so we had a few moments for Amanda to play with the props

and dance with the feather boas.

The pictures were to be ready in 10 minutes, and I didn't want to stay there, as I worried that Amanda's playing with the lego toys was distracting to the two-yr-old boy who was NOT IN THE MOOD to have his picture taken. So we went across the street of the open air mall and treated ourselves to some ice cream.

She also spent quite a few minutes chasing the birds which were hovering for any droppings. She has this habit the last couple of weeks of chasing birds and squirrels while making a rabid cat hissing noise. It's really kind of a horrible sound, and she uses it A LOT. Squirrels and birds make a hasty retreat from her, that's for sure.

When we got home, she wanted to keep the dress on, but I wanted the other one to stay nice for school pictures, so I had her put on this fun Hawaiian dress that she inherited from her cousin Abby. She looked so cute, with the flower in her hair, that I grabbed a picture of her by our flowers.

That Saturday (8/29) we went to the Millard Days Parade, which was on her birthday last year, so was a part of her day then. This year it was just the two of us, and we went early and saved a spot. Unfortunately, it was in the shade and it was quite a bit chilly that day!

She got to say hi to lots of clowns and mascots, which are her favorites. I know a lot of kids are afraid of clowns, and I'm glad she's not.

I offered her my jacket, but she only kept it on for a minute. At one point, she wrapped herself up in our blanket and laid down like she was taking a nap, and I found myself picking up the candy that came our way, and then feeling guilty for being an adult picking up the candy. But I justified that I was doing it in her stead. I didn't pick up very much, actually, because she had plenty!

It was a long parade (2.5 hours) and lots of Shriners again. They seemed more spread out, so we didn't get quite as tired of seeing them as we did last year.

We had a sad run-in with my neighbor Mike when we got home. He was mowing, so I tooted the horn to say hi as we drove in the driveway. He came over to say hi and we told him we'd been to the parade. He noticed she had a sticker on for our Republican congressman (in general, a six-year-old's answer to "do you want a sticker?" is "yes!", not "how does your candidate feel about...."). I said she likes stickers, but he made a bad remark about the congressman. I said I didn't have a problem with him, actually I think he's a good guy, and Mike just went on about this and that. I said, "Well, if you're a liberal, and it kind of sounds like you are, then just let me say that I'm a conservative and let's just not talk about it." But he just kept on and on, putting down this and that. I again said, "Mike, seriously, let's not talk about it", but he kept talking, calling me brainwashed (well, 90% of the media does give my point of view a favorable "teflon" viewing - no wait, it's the liberal point of view that gets that treatment. And I'm the one who's brainwashed?). I wasn't going to just stand there and let him trash me, so I tried to defend my views, but I'm not a great debater (of couse, he wasn't that impressive - "Bush is an idiot" "Palin's an idiot" - hardly the stuff of a thoughtful scholar). I finally walked away from him and said, "Amanda, let's go in the house since Mike can't be nice." He kept ranting, and I said, "You know Mike, you had a chance to be a good neighbor and just stop talking, but you wouldn't do it." He said, "Well, who's the one who's upset? I'm not upset." (I get worked up about these things, especially when I'm attacked (go figure), and I actually do hold strong opinions, I just am not well equipped to persuade/debate others.) I told him again that he decided not to be a good neighbor and we went in the house. That's the last time we've talked to him. "Louis, this could be the [end] of a beautiful friendship." It wasn't beautiful, actually, just nice and friendly (and it's not like I didn't realize that we had different values and lifestyles), but he could be fun and he was very nice and fun for Amanda. We'll miss saying hi to his little dogs, too. Amanda hasn't asked me about him. We talked about it, and I said I probably could have been nicer, but I thought Mike owed me an apology. She talked about it for awhile that day, but otherwise it hasn't been a big issue for her, or for me. It's sad, but I think it's mostly his loss.

There was one really funny thing, which I couldn't appreciate in the moment. Background: sometimes I think that I'm going on and on when I'm talking to someone, so I'll cut myself off and say, "...blah, blah, blah, anyway, what I wondered is..." and get to the point. I guess I must say "blah, blah, blah" fairly often, as I've heard her use it. Well, when we were standing there, arguing about the state of the nation, Amanda was standing between us, looking up at us, pulling on our hands, saying, "Blah, blah blah! Blah, blah, blah, blah!" hoping to get us to stop, I think. A part of my brain recognized, "Hey, that's pretty funny!" but it couldn't get any air time with the heat of the argument. I think I might have looked down and said, "I know, we should stop talking, shouldn't we, Amanda? But Mike won't let it go."

I should have broken out into a soothing Obama mantra of "Change, change, change....yes, we can...hope and change" - maybe he would have been calmed and stopped talking.

She had a pretty good week the next week. She had a couple "warning" days in her kindergarten class, and a couple "green - stayed on track" days as well. We observed two different gymnastics programs, as that's the next thing I decided to have her try (and Aunt 'Nette wanted to have it be part of her birthday present, which is cool!). The first one was in sort of a run down building, but decent equipment and really great instructors. The one gal was so energetic and smiley, she just made you want to be around her. That was Tuesday night. Thursday night we went to a newer facility, with more kids, less room for parents to observe (or it just felt more ackward to try to observe, but I wanted to see how it was run so I could make a decision). Her group had too many kids for the instructor to be able to really help Amanda figure out what she was supposed to be doing, so she would just goof around whenever the gal wasn't actively helping her. After the lesson, the instructor came over and found me as we were on our way out, and she said Amanda did a good job, so I thought that was nice, but I was pretty sold on the first place at that point. I think she'll really enjoy it. The instructor at the first place was surprised that she'd never had gymnastics - she said Amanda held herself really well, and that's not something that's easy to teach. Do they just tell you what you want to hear? Either way, no harm no foul, but I chose to believe her. =)

She was super naughty at Kids Network (after school program) on Friday. They haven't figured out how to deal with her, but they weren't communicating any problems to me, so I didn't realize it. They put a general note on the bulletin board for parents to tell the kids to be quiet and sit still for "midline" (attendance taking, once in the morning, once in the afternoon), but I didn't really know what it was at the time, so I didn't think much of it. After all, if there was a problem they'd have been letting me know, right? Well, Friday when I picked her up, there was a note to see Angie. She said they had a terrible time with her - all the other kids were sitting for midline but she was running around - into the office, in the bathrooms - and all four of them were chasing her and they really can't have that with so many other children who also need their attention. Wow, how powerful must Amanda have felt - she was able to get 4 adults chasing her around the gym! Angie made it sound like they always have problems with her, it was just especially much on Friday and she finally had to write her up. I told her, yes, of course, I can see that she should be written up, but they really should have been COMMUNICATING this with me all along. I need to support their efforts and I only had her input on how she'd been, and guess what - Amanda hadn't been telling me she'd been naughty. (Of course, when I pick her up, if it's been awhile since the naughty event, she's probably totally dismissed it and forgotten about it.) I was asking the supervisors how she was, but sometimes they're busy with other kids and I figured they'd tell me if I needed to know something. Anyway, hopefully we have it straightened out and they will tell me what's going on. Angie set up a calendar and every day we're going to find her and she'll either give Amanda a sticker to put on the calendar, or none if she's naughty. After so many stickers, she'll get a prize. We'll see. That's one write-up on her "record" for the program. Hopefully it will be the last (say a prayer). Angie did say that Amanda can be really sweet and that she's super smart - that she's the smartest kindergartener she's dealt with (again, just saying what a parent wants to hear?)

We had a pretty subdued Friday night. Super naughtiness means no playing with friends, no movie watching, no "fun". And no Burger King. Did I mention that's been my Friday treat for myself? She plays in the play tubes with the kids who are there (hopefully there are some - usually there are) and I read a book or the paper. We did go Saturday night. I didn't know if anyone would be out, since the first Husker game of the season was on PPV, but a few kids showed up after we'd been there awhile. We were going to go up to Mom & Dad's for the day Saturday, joining Patty's family, but they had car trouble and stayed in Kansas, so we stayed home and I enjoyed having a nothing day to clean the kitchen floor, vacuum the living room, and do some other projects. We asked Dominic, the little boy across the street, if he wanted to play, and he came over for awhile, playing on the swingset, digging in the dirt where I'm placing some edging stones. That was nice, for her to have a playmate. And I didn't want to punish her all weekend for her naughty day - it would have been torture for me.

On Sunday, after church and lunch, we walked down to Taylor's house (little girl down the street) to see if she wanted to play, and they invited Amanda to play there. Taylor has a doll house in the basement and her brothers, of course, are not interested in playing with her, so it was fun for her to have a girl play. I went home and finished prepping my front step railing to be painted while I waited for my brother-in-law Keith to come up from Lincoln. I'd called him for advice about why my kitchen faucet quit working (only a trickle came out) and he said he could come up Sunday and help me fix it. It's so nice to be rescued! Thanks again, Keith!!! He replaced the cartridge but we found the problem was the removable spout, so I bought a new one at Menards later. Taylor's dad brought Amanda back home, and after Keith helped me remove some of the front shutters over the garage for painting (it's a long way up on the ladder - I didn't want to do it without someone to spot me, but he went up the ladder and got them down - what a guy!), then he headed home. Amanda spotted Bethany and her brother Gabriel outside their house (two houses down the street the other direction from Taylor's house) and went over to say hi. They invited her to play, so I asked Bethany's dad if he minded if I ran to Menards really quick. He didn't (I know, I was really a mooch of my neighbor's kids the whole weekend!) and I was able to go and get the paint for the rail and get the new kitchen faucet spout (which worked great!). I was so appreciative to him for being ok with my quick supply run. We ate supper and I started painting the rail while she played - at our own house, I would mention. I stopped to get her ready for bed, and let her sleep on the couch as I wanted to finish painting the railing. She still gets panicky if she thinks I'm going to go outside or in the garage while she's in bed, ever since the "mother of the year" incident. She was ok on the couch, though - she could see me through the glass storm door and did fall asleep. I ended up out there until 9:20, using a trouble light to finish the job. I'm sure it was an interesting sight, if any neighbors noticed. I was thrilled to be done with it, though. I painted the shutters Tuesday evening, and will maybe get them back up this weekend.

Monday morning, we slept in and had a laidback morning. About 10am, we headed to Lincoln to join Barb in going to the Nebraska State Fair (last year in Lincoln, next year in Grand Island). We had a fun, long, tiring day at the fair. Barb's country dancing group, the Doeden Dancers, was in the Fair's parade, so we walked along with them. It reminded me of a musical - you know, the plot is going along and then suddenly the characters break into song? Here, they would be walking along and then the guy with the boom box would start a song and they'd break into a country line dance. While we were waiting for the parade to start, Amanda found some clowns and a puppy mascot to hug and get pictures.

The puppy mascot was funny - he would take her hand and then pretend to give her whole arm a huge lick with his big mouth. She was giggling the whole time.

It was taking awhile for the parade to start, so while the dancers waited in line, Amanda & I went in the animal barn for a bit and she got to see lambs, goats and pigs up close. There was an empty pen so I had her step in and be on exhibit for a picture:

The parade finally started and here's a pic of some of the dancers, Barb in the center:

After the parade, we got a bite to eat, and headed for the Midway, where Amanda got to ride two rides. She had a blast, even though they were pretty short.

I love her expression in this picture, even if part of her face is obscured.

Nice wave!

We stopped in the small animal shed and she got to see lots of awesome looking roosters, hens and rabbits. We saw the huge Clysdesdale horses on display (and some of them were displaying ... quite a bit of themselves, shall I say - the adults were embarrassed and/or impressed, while those who were parents were hoping their child wouldn't say, "Hey Dad, what's that?!") Then back to the Expo hall where the dancers gave a 4pm hour-long exhibition. That's a lot of dancing, especially after hours of walking around the fairgrounds. I'm glad I didn't have to dance! Amanda got out there with Aunt Barb - did she really think she could just "pick it up"?

Aunt Barb: "...then do this, now turn..." etc.

Amanda: (I think I feel silly. I'm going to go back and sit by Mom!)

This week was another good and bad week. A couple of green days in her class and a couple of yellows (saying mean things to a classmate, moving her behavior chart racecar without permission). Kids network was the same - some good days, some not so good (pinching a girl who wouldn't let her kill a ladybug, throwing some woodchips on the playground). *sigh*

Tuesday night, after I painted the shutters, I touched up a few spots I missed on the railing. (Can you believe I missed a few spots, finishing up in the dark with a trouble light? Me neither!) She had been wanting to paint the front storm door again, so I washed that off and let her do that with the door open, so any mess was on the stoop. And mess there was! She kept painting and then wiping it off with the wet rag. I finally cleaned it all again (it was just streaky from all her erasures) and told her NO MORE ERASING! If she painted and made a mistake, so what. I want some pictures! So, finally she left her pictures up there. She was a messy girl by the time she was done. And I don't really think all that belly painting was an "accident" - but I didn't care. It was bath night regardless! (or maybe it wasn't bath night until after the painting, then it definitely was!)

All right, blah, blah, blah... I hope you all had a good Labor Day weekend!