Anna goes to school (and ballet)

Well, now that my computer is working again - after 3 days, 2 tech support phone calls, and 2 trips to my neighborhood Comcast office - I can write again!

On Monday, Anna went to preschool for the first time. (Sigh! Where does the time go?) She was great, no tears, and had a lot of fun. When I came back to pick her up, I nearly cried when I saw her grab her backpack off the hook, look at me across the crowd, and smile. Then I really nearly cried when she came over and gave me a big ol' bear hug!

On Wednesday, Anna was overjoyed to go to her first ballet lesson! She literally squealed with delight when I told her that was where we were going that day. She looked so cute in her pink tights, leotard, and ballet shoes, with her hair up in a bun. I thought we had to have a bun, so I'd learned how to do it online. When we got there, though, all the other girls just had ponytails, so I asked, and it turned out buns are optional for the three-year-olds. But we had practiced our bun and Anna was excited about it, so we went ahead as planned and I made the little bun (her hair is so fine). After the class, Anna was bouncing off the walls, very excited! And she got stickers, which is always a good thing, until she realized she'd lost a couple of them, which then became a bad thing accompanied by crying. O the highs and lows of a preschooler!

Today I thought I'd take Anna and Will to the playground for some outdoor fun since it was only going to be in the mid/upper 80's (with the added benefit that I wouldn't spend any money on food, etc because we could eat lunch at home). Often we will go run around a nice air-conditioned mall when it's hot outside (yes, Jon and I are those parents!). But today we headed for the great outdoors. I knew it had rained last night, but I didn't think it had rained all that much from what I could tell at our house. It had, however, apparently rained quite a lot at the playgrounds, parts of which were flooded and/or very muddy. So after 2 playgrounds and over an hour driving (while Will became increasingly restless and vocal about his discontent), we ended up... at the mall, where I bought us all lunch anyway as a sort of consolation prize for not being able to swing and climb! So much for plans sometimes!