And Poof! Summer’s Over.

Not the godawful heat, of course. The threat of hurricanes will continue for months, as will the huge thunderstorms. The electric bill will remain an obscenity. That part of summer goes on forever in Florida. But tomorrow Delaney starts second grade.

We sort of stumbled into a family tradition in the last couple of years. My daughter and son-in-law work for two different nearby school systems, and they have to be at their schools when Delaney’s school does “Meet the Teacher,” which is inexplicably scheduled for a weekday morning, so parents have to take off work. Because they work for schools, however, it’s difficult for them to take off. My daughter thought she could make it this year, then a meeting/training that had been scheduled for the afternoon was switched to morning, so…Grandma to the rescue. I took Friday off; Delaney talked me into a sleepover on Thursday, and we spent all of Friday together.

It had been quite a while since she’d slept over; between dance, more dance, still more dance, sleepovers with friends, and endless rounds of birthday parties, she’s the busiest 7 year old on earth. The last time she slept over she was a little girl, now she’s most definitely a tween.

After we met her new teacher (I think she’s going to have a good year) we went to the mall. I’d offered a trip to Bath and Body Works, her new favorite store, and lunch in the food court. She got some lovely smelly stuff (buy 2, get 1 free) and had bourbon chicken for the first time (loved it). Then we stopped at Target, where she talked me into a Frappuccino at Starbucks, and got a shower poof to use with her new body wash. Then it was home to watch The Avengers – don’t ask me which one; she talked through the entire movie and I’ll have to watch it again in peace.

And tomorrow school starts again.

Our Disney passes were blocked out for much of summer; the blockout ended on Friday, and I need a Disney Fix, BAD. I need to stay for the fireworks at Magic Kingdom; I haven’t done that in far too long.

My Happy Place

It says something (something awful) that I had to go way back into my photos to find a picture of the castle. No filters – the setting sun did the lighting effects.

First and Last Days of First Grade.

I think her legs doubled in length!

I’m still messing around with formatting in WordPress, which has way more bells and whistles than Blogger. Today I’m figuring out how to insert and format photos, so here are a few pics of Delaney.

My daughter took the first and last day of school photos in the same spot on campus. Can you believe how much this girl changed in a year? At this rate, she’ll be as tall as I am by 4th grade. She’s doing great. She’s smart as hell, very funny, utterly dance-obsessed, reading waaay above grade level, taught herself to write in cursive, she’s really quite a kid.

While Grandma does worry that dance takes up so much of her life at such a young age, she truly lives to dance. The hours of work those kids put in are mind-boggling, but she’s thriving on it. It requires a lot of mental discipline as well as physical talents, and as everything academic is a breeze for her, it’s good that she has something in her life that requires this much focus. And her poise and confidence in competition will serve her well in any future career. She can walk out onto a huge stage at 7 and perform a solo in front of hundreds of people and a panel of judges, and her smart, sassy personality shines through. I never could have done this at her age.