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Yesterday I took Maya to get her hair cut. She has been in desperate need of a trim for a while and since she is on Spring Break this week and I’ve been looking for little things to do to fill our days I declared yesterday “Hair Cut Day”. She loves going to the “salon” to get her hair cut so she was super excited.
In St. Louis I had been taking her to this adorable salon in the mall dedicated to little girls. Everything was princess themed and they always did her hair in a cute little up do after her cut and sprayed her hair with glitter. She LOVED it! I looked into taking her to a similar place here but when I saw the cost for a hair cut (simple cut, no style/no shampoo) was $30!! I said forget it. The place in St. Louis was $15, and included shampooing and styling along with a few extras like glitterly face stamps. I was not about to pay that kind of money for a simple trim. So, off to Great Clips we went. She didn’t really care, she enjoyed herself anyway. Although she did ask the girl for glitterly face stamps and spray glitter for her hair and was a bit disappointed when they didn’t have that stuff.
She ended up with a pretty adorable little hair cut. They trimmed about an inch off to get rid of the split ends and added a few face framing layers. It looks adorable, and so grown up!
When exactly did she get so grown up? I swear every day she looks more grown up than the day before. I feel like just yesterday I was taking her for her very first hair cut. Where does the time go?
Tomorrow I am hosting a little play date for a new friend that Maya made recently. This little girl lives in our neighborhood (her first new friend that lives close by) and will be starting kindergarten with Maya in the fall (hopefully in the same class). Tomorrow she and her mom are coming over for lunch a little play date. It is the start of new friendships, for Maya and for me. Maya played at her house for a few hours on Sunday and the girls had a wonderful time. It is nice to see her bonding with new people.
We all still miss our friends in St. Louis dearly. Maya still talks pretty much daily about her best pal, Claire. But, these new little friendships she is forming are helping her. They are helping her adjust to life here in Seattle. They are helping her settle in and enjoy herself. Kindergarten is going to be a big step for her, it is going to be a big change. I’m glad she has someone to experience that with now.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I’m looking forward to watching Maya and her new little friend play and giggle and be little girls together. It should be a great afternoon.
Last week, with both kids in tow thanks to Lorne being out of town for work, I headed down the street to our local elementary school. Now, why was I going to the elementary school with both children you might ask. Well, it was kindergarten registration day!
As it turns out each school in our district handles kindergarten registration a bit differently. After reading through all the details online and calling the kindergarten school board rep I determined that our particular school was not handing out registration packets ahead of time and parents had to show up at the school between 1:30pm and 6:00pm on March 6th to fill out the registration forms, hand over copies of all the necessary documentation and get their kiddos all signed up for kindergarten. I was not exactly impressed that I couldn’t fill out the paperwork ahead of time. I’m not a fan of last minute stuff, but what could I do.
With my pile of necessary documentation in hand I headed into the school, which by the way is awesome! The registration process was set up very well. There were packets right at the front door with all the registration forms. There were tables set up in the hallway covered in paper so that the kids could color away while their parents filled out what felt like endless amounts of paperwork. The school nurse was on hand to review immunization records and go over any immunizations the child may need to get before school starts (luckily for us we are all caught up). She was also available to go over the process for special medical situations, like Maya’s nut allergy. She was super sweet. After all the paperwork was filled out and we had talked with the school nurse it was onto the front office to hand over everything. The office staff was super helpful and super sweet. It didn’t take long to go over all the forms and we were on our way.
Our school district is not currently offering full day kindergarten at no charge to all students. Instead each student who is interested in full day kindergarten has to enter a lottery and if selected through the lottery to fill one of the slots there is a monthly tuition fee. We are hopeful that Maya will get a full time spot as I’ve heard it is rare in our district for them not to accommodate all the children who have requested the full day program, but I’m really fine with either. Next week we’ll find out.
I truly can’t believe we are already here, getting ready for kindergarten. She isn’t my baby anymore, not by a long shot. She is definitely our big, smart girl who is more than ready to face this new challenge. I’m really looking forward to what next year bring for her. I have a feeling she is going to grow and change immensely.
Happy 1/2 Birthday Miss Anna B!
Wow, 18 months already! Time flies when you are having barrels of fun.
It is crazy to think we are already halfway through Anna’s second year. I mean wasn’t her birthday just yesterday! Every day she is more toddler and less baby. As she sits and talks to me in her own little way of half real words half baby speak I am in awe of how quickly time is rushing by. But, no matter how big she is getting (in her own tiny peanut way) she isn’t too big for snuggles. And, boy, does she love to snuggle. Where is that pause button?
More to come later this week on her 18 month stats and what she is up to these days once she has her well child check up on Thursday. For now I’m going to go back to snuggling my still sick and teething 18 month old snuggle bug.
Love you baby girl 
Maya is extremely shy and nervous, she has been since birth. Even as a baby she was painfully shy around people, even those she saw regularly, and she had a very nervous personality. I’m sure you all remember the debacle that was our first attempt at gymnastics a couple of years ago. So, when she started preschool last year I was understandably nervous about how it would go. But I ended up not having anything to worry about, she did great.
Thanks to an amazing preschool teacher that really did a great job of helping Maya come out of her shell I felt like we took two giant steps forward in tackling her shyness. She was open to playing with new kids at the playground. She took gymnastics and dance without any trouble. Her summer camps went really well (most of them anyway). I could still see glimpses of that super shy little girl that started the school year, but mostly she was gone. And then we moved…
We are in the second week of school and instead of things improving they seem to be getting worse. She was scared and nervous her first day but did really well at drop off, she didn’t even cry. On her second day she cried at drop off but still ended up having a great day. Yesterday at drop off she threw a fit and clung to me crying. Her teacher was able to calm her down and I was able to leave, but when I came to pick her up she said she didn’t play or do anything all morning she just stood with her teacher. It is definitely beginning to feel like we have taken two steps backwards. The strides we made last year are all but gone.
I know it is still early in the school year so there is still hope. I know a lot of what is going on with her stems from the move and leaving her friends, her school, her home, all that was comfortable to her. I hope that as time passes she’ll make a friend or two in class and things will get easier for her and she’ll gain back some of the confidence she worked so hard for last year. Her teachers at her new school are wonderful and are working hard to help Maya feel comfortable at school and I really appreciate that.
We’ll just keep talking to her, encouraging her and working on getting her to come out of her shell a bit. She loved school so much last year, I hope she gets to that point at this new school too. Looking forward to taking those two giant steps forward with her again, hopefully sooner rather than later.