Once upon a time there was a bird called Flamingo. She had a baby bird that she named Little Flamingo, or Flaminguito. By the time Flaminguito turned one year old, she was doing a lot of funny things that Flamingo wanted to share with all the other birds in her flock. When a friend from the monkey exhibit at the Zoo told her about a blog, she decided to start one of her own...then two little baby blue birds came along and she added their antics to her blog, too...this is Flaminguito's blog.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
And the winner is...
Yup. She won her first "earned" prize. Our big bird won a prize for her book review in the summer reading program at our library. Here's the review of Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking. She said her favorite part was "when Pippi went INSIDE the tree and said, 'this is cool,' and she got a ladder and she even threw her coffee pot down from the tree and it broke and she said, 'oh, it's okay,' and she rode her horse to school!" Here are the images of all of it. I thought it was downright adorable!
And the baby blue bird got a "participatory" prize for his review of Graem Base's "The Water Hole". He said his favorite part was "da daaaayyyy." (translation: "I really like how the illustrator used so many different colors to create such beautiful images...the bears are neat, too.")
It's official, our little Big Bird is now a school girl! Today was her first day. She goes in the afternoons so at lunchtime she said she was kind of nervous. "Why, honey?" "Because it's something I've never done before and I'm just not sure." "Oh, I understand, everyone gets nervous about new things sometimes (trying to fight back the tears and in doing so, avoiding telling her how nervous I am) but I have something that will help, do you want to see?" "Yeah," she replies. "Do you remember when we found this agate on the river?" I ask as I hand her an agate we found this summer on a walk with the whole family. "Yes!" "Well," I tell her as I kiss the agate, "if you keep this with you, it's like I'm right there beside you, whenever you get nervous or just want to share something with me, just feel for this rock." "Okay," she agrees. Then we put it in her backpack. But when we get to school, she has to take her backpack off, so she quickly transfers the rock to her jacket pocket and wears her jacket the entire time she's there, so it was close. It worked well, I didn't even cry (when she could see me), although I was on the verge of it all day. I knew it would make it harder on her, but couldn't help thinking of what a milestone this is, all these images are flashing through my head as I'm driving her there...honestly, I was thinking about the day she was born and how nervous I was going into the hospital to have "our baby girl" then standing in the parking lot crying because I just didn't know what to expect. Then, I was thinking about her first day of gymnastics without me, and how I couldn't help but cry then too, then about her starting Sunday School and singing in her first Christmas program and then about how I'll feel when she graduates from high school and goes off to college...I mean, we have so much we haven't even done together yet, so many things to talk about, she's not ready for college yet--maybe I should just turn around and drive her back home. Then it occurs to me, she's had a lot of firsts and has made it through all of them, and college is, well, a little far off still, so why should I cry about it? Shouldn't I show my joy in another way? So with a LOT of prayer, I was able to keep my tears at bay and remind myself that she needed to be excited, not held back by a crying mom, and needed me to send her off with smiles. So, I handed the camera over to my loving, faithful husband, whom I think knew better than to ask how I was doing (he always knows when I'm on the verge of losing it) and handed him the Baby Blue Bird as he showed him around the room so I could stay near my little girl and not lose it until the teacher said, "Okay class, it's time to give hugs and kisses and say, 'Goodbye' to our parents so we can start." "Goodbye? She has to say, 'Goodbye?' But I'm her Mommy!"And then it happened. I hugged her, she hugged Daddy and Baby birds, she said, "Bye." And we left, got in the car and drove home to bake cookies so she'd have something to dip in fresh milk while she told me all about it. Two and a half hours later, I got the biggest hug she's ever given me as I heard, "it was great, Mom!" So that was that, all that build up, and it was great. She did great, we are all great. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Well, it's been about 2 1/2 weeks since the Big Bird's learned to ride her bike without training wheels...big news for the big bird...now she's the master of her domain on two wheels, so much so that when we took a trip to visit her grandparents, she starred in her own movie about it. See below for the frightening footage...should be coming to a theater near you by Halloween time, quite a fright, take a peek and see, if you dare!
