A little more Ramona, please

This day beat me up (and down).  On the one hand, I haven't been in this kind of a daily groove for a couple of years now, so I'm feeling a little metaphorically flabby.  On the other hand, rock it all you adults everywhere who, like me, would prefer to have more of these ON days than not.  The ensuing headache beside, what a delight such busy bee days are.

After the usually Thursday mama-taxi service, I enjoyed a casual end of the pre-school year snack-picnic-bounce-houses celebration.  Even better, my sister-in-law and her bouncing baby boy were in town through today, and she was on board with some pre-shool and later Kindergarten shenanigans.  We had a low key sushi-peanut butter-McDonalds lunch, which the boy was able to join us for, and then we all trooped over to the Elder's school for her Kindergarten graduation.

Good people of the world wide web, we basically think that such pomp and circumstance is downright ludicrous.  There were tears and bouquets of flowers.  There was a ceremonial turning of the tassels and fistfuls of Mylar "Congratulations!" balloons decorate with graduation caps.  It took nearly an hour.

I took nary a picture, wiped nary a tear, and made ridiculous cheering noises nary once.  From my perspective, I very well could have been the only mother abstaining. 

Not only do I not get excited by such goings-on, but also I spent the entire time scrutinizing the Elder for signs that an epic meltdown was about to happen.  Perhaps as he biggest sign of her own growth throughout the school year was her willingness to wear that ludicrous get-up the entire time and enthusiastically joined in the many songs and "poems" despite having utterly no personal space.  This is news.  Happy news.

And my other bit of serendipity this week comes from our time in the car, ferrying the little ladies around.  We are listening to Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary.  That's right.  The very same Ramona the Brave that I read several times myself when I was in grade school, some 20-25 years ago.

Oh, it is priceless.  Oh, it is delightfully funny.  Oh, it is rich and fully of storytelling flavor.  The Elder laughs.  I laugh.  And the Younger acts the part of the echo and laughs when someone else does.

So while these "graduations" seem to be increasingly prevalent, showing that times they-are-a-changing, some of ye 'olde good stuff still stays good and true and just right.