Farewell, preschool!

Marley had her last day of preschool today. Next fall, she'll get on a big yellow bus every afternoon and ride to the kindergarten a few miles away. I feel pretty melancholy about the end of her every-other-day academics, but she is more than ready for the next step. We're talking about a five-year-old who dresses for her cousin's Transformers birthday party as though she's heading to the Kentucky Derby and would enjoy the refreshment of a mint julep. A five-year-old who is officially reading, spinning cartwheels, and (get ready for awesome) using jazz hands in the tap number of this year's dance recital.

I am so proud of Bean-Bean-Beanie. When she exclaims things like, "And then I would scurry away!" or muses that bouncing a ball against a wall is "like an echo, because it comes back to me." She can handle it. I can, too.

And Rudy will start her first year of preschool in the fall. Can you imagine that kid at Circle Time? I just hope she refrains from playing with her baby dollies with the script she created a few months ago: holding a sweet plastic doll right up to her face; muttering, "Baby. I'm so. MAD AT YOU!"; and then hurling it across the room. And laughing with delight.