Preschool Practice.

We're done with preschool. But only for a few months. Because in the fall, when Bean's officially a kindergartner, Rudy will officially start school, and she's excited about it. She knows she's going to start "pee-skool" sometime soon, and the other night while we were all slumped and hanging out in the Adirondack chairs on our new side patio, Rudy found Marley's first preschool backpack, made sure it had some of her favorite things in it (a Gossie stuffed animal, a book about a princess using the potty, and most importantly, a square three-inch gift book filled with glossy photographs of Hermey the misfit elf), and informed us several times, smiling, that she was leaving for pee-skool. Pantless.

This morning, while Marley and Rudy and I munched snacks on one of the picnic benches at Davis Farm's splash park, I asked Rudy if she was going to listen to her teachers at preschool. I'm not so sure how she's going to do, if my preparing her in June is any indication. I asked her if she knew how to raise her hand, and then she demonstrated, shooting her right arm in the air and then waggling it around and flopping her hand from side to side, like she was either turning an invisible doorknob or giving a so-so review for the new season of "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan." Later, Marley showed Rudy her version: shoulders back, and both her left arm and hand rigid and completely vertical, like a salute. "I like to keep it straight," said the pipsqueak-y perfectionist. "I bet you do," I said back. And then we had some cookies.