A Ballerina Princess Party

The sound of 20+ squealing, screaming, chasing little four-year-old girls is deafening.

Especially when you're the ONLY. BOY. THERE.
Sometimes, big brothers just get stuck. Sorry, bud.

At the ripe old age of four, with two older siblings in the house, I often forget that The Monkey is still so young. It's only when I see her with a gaggle of her little friends that I remember she's not as old as she acts. And trust me, the girl acts like she's about 30. Truth.

It's good for her to be around kids her own age.

It's one of the blessings of raising Day Care Kids if you ask me. I remember my childhood years as spent outside with a gang of neighborhood kids, riding bikes, picking up games of football in someone's backyard, knocking on doors until you found someone to go play down by the creek with...

 And, due to our rather urban existence, The Munchkins have never had much of a neighborhood 'gang' to run with. And I shudder to think of the little shut-ins I might have raised, given my propensity for curling up with a book or movie and shutting out the world for large swaths of time...

Plus, it's always sort of a treat to watch The Munchkins play when they forget you're looking, or forget you're there at all. They're freer with their expressions, freer with their play, when they converge in numbers like that. It's school yard gossip, preschool politics. It's a riot is what it is.

And given the Monkey's leanings toward drama and grandstanding, it was comforting to see that she's not the only one who tends toward those things. There were 19 other little ones making mountains out of molehills there. Thank god.

See also exhibit B for why I love Day Caring my kids. Ability for parental comparison. Mostly I'm just glad my kid isn't the total weirdest in the group. Well, not all the time anyway...

Man oh Man are they ever growing up fast.