WOW

There are times that Caroline manages to surprise me - I guess that's not entirely hard to do when parenting a 4.5 year old, but you know what I mean. Keep in mind that this is the same kid with whom I had NATO-level debates with last week over her lack of faith in me that her arm floaties *would so* hold her up - I made her friend Erin put them on just to show Caroline how it worked!

So today after swim lessons, the instructor dismissed two other little boys in a higher-level class than Caroline and her friends and said that they could go down the "big slide" if they wanted to. Caroline said "hey, I want to go down the slide too!" The swim teacher and I had a silent mental conversation with each other about whether or not we thought she would really do it, but Caroline said she promised to go down the slide if Miss Lindsey was there to catch her. I walked her over to the slide, and reminded her that the slide into the pool was definitely smaller than the slides at the playground, so she could totally do it. She climbed to the top and after some encouraging yells from Miss Lindsey and me, she actually WENT! Of course, as a parent one of those key moments of awareness in your brain happens in the .0018 of a second that you realize "that's my baby shooting out over four feet of open space to splash down in the pool!" And my facial expression pretty much matched Caroline's when she shot out the end of the slide - looks like :-0 !!!! However, once the spluttering and spitting stopped, Caroline laughed and said it was great and she would absolutely do it again. That's my adventurous girl!

Swim Lessons

Kicking while holding on to a float with Miss Tara

Doing the back float

Jumping into the deep end of the pool

Splashdown!

Caroline's swim class - from left to right, Maya (that Caroline knew at Chipmunks Preschool), Caroline, Sarah, and Mike who swims like he was born in the water!

It's been nearly a month!

Yes, I last posted pictures on June 19 - so it's been almost a month. Very unlike me! Caroline has been having a busy summer. She goes to camp three days a week, with storytime and free kids' movies at the mall rounding out the other days, along with other special outings like a movie with Daddy, playdates with school friends, trips to the pool or the bounce-house.

Our "new neighbors". Their wings are clipped, so they pretty much just mosey around and eat the weeds along the fence. (yay!) Caroline runs and screams in abject terror whenever they get near her! It's so hard to have proper sympathy for your terrified child when you're trying not to fall on the floor laughing!

Caroline got "pretty hair" from Ms. Venus during a hair trim last week.

Playing outside in the lovely weather. I like the mid-jump action shots!

Playing "mini golf" that Grandma and Grandpa sent.

At the circus

Climbing up the ladder to the slide - she's a pro at these inflatable "rides" now!

Sliding down all by herself, and it was pretty steep!

Best friends - Erin and Caroline

Elephant rides at the circus; they give the elephant a quick "bath" with a leaf blower to get all the random grass/hay/dirt/etc off. The elephant really enjoyed it!

At the bounce house

This is so fun, Mom!

Sliding down the obstacle course slide, after some encouragement.

Up the climbing wall of the obstacle course.

If I can do the other slide, I can CERTAINLY do this one!

We consider the bounce house the best $6 admission we've spent in a long time. For an hour and a half, kids can come in and climb, slide and bounce themselves silly. Caroline already says she wants to have her birthday party here!

Singing at the end-of-year assembly; Caroline at the far right waving.

Caroline receiving her end-of-year Montessori badge from Ms. Yost

A bunch of friends at the school picnic - Sarah, Stephanie, Caroline, Emma and Anna.

Caroline with her pal Spencer, and Johanna also from their class.

Caroline-isms

Caroline has been playing "waitress at the Cafe" with her little kitchen set (swear to Heaven, the smartest $75 we ever spent when she was 18 months old - she still plays with it nearly daily!) So we spent one whole afternoon with her taking our orders and making us plastic food. When James and I had run out of ideas, we said "what do you recommend?" Caroline asked what that means, and we told her that it meant we wanted to know what she thought would be good to eat. So after cleaning up the "kitchen", it became her new favorite word - "Mommy, I recommend that we have peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Daddy, I recommend we watch Charlie and Lola". In other words, here's what I want - get to it! hahaha

Another evening, after a very busy day, Caroline was worn out. She was fading fast all through dinner, and when I put her to bed she barely paid attention to the stories we read. Like always, I knelt down next to her bed to give her a kiss goodnight and either talk about something we did that day or something that will happen tomorrow, etc. But for the first time ever, as I was talking, Caroline said "Mom, I'm so tired I can hardly hold my eyes up. Can we finish this tomorrow?"

Ice Cream Truck

The ice cream truck came this afternoon...

and Mommy's letting me eat it before dinner, even!

Ahhh, bliss!

Relaxing in the backyard shade.

All the cars lined up to go to McDonald's (no, why would we play with just a few cars? hahaha)

Barbies go shopping (yes, Mom, we did still keep all the Barbie stuff!)

Looking for bird's nests in the backyard trees

More Ballet Pictures

"Point to where you came from...."

"And spin!"

The butterflies emerge from their cocoon (Caroline is in the center)


Erin and Caroline flap their wings

Clapping when the teacher said they could keep the butterfly wings...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Boy were we RELIEVED when the ballet performance went off without a problem. Caroline had decided to skip a nap that day (I normally require it on ballet days just to have her in a better mood) so was running on pure adrenaline, making her prone to a meltdown. She was so nervous about what to do if she forgot what to be doing, but did so well that some of the other girls were looking at her to help them remember what to do!