Ready or Not

I can't believe we are already talking about this! Matt and I are in the thick of deciding whether or not to send Megan to Kindergarten in the Fall. Where did the time go? Wasn't it yesterday that she was just learning to walk, learning to talk. Just going to her first day of pre-school? She was tested last week to determine her "Kindergarten Readiness" and tonight we are attending a meeting to learn and discuss her results.

California has one of the latest cut off dates in the country for entering Kindergarten, and there is a current trend of "push down" academics going on the the public schools around us - so we are taking this decision very seriously. We just attended a seminar by Bonnie Bruce on Kindergarten Readiness. Megan will be eligible age wise and I have no doubt she will be ready interest wise. But since she has a late summer birthday and is physically on the small side, we are leaning towards sending her to a year of Jr. Kindergarten first. The school we send her to now has a great Pre-K program - equally as academic as it is developmental play.

But one thing is for sure - she is growing up. Recently, certain events have really cemented this fact in my mind. The first thing that made realize this transition was upon us happened in the middle of the night last month. I was awake nursing Wyatt and I heard some little feet making their way to the bathroom. I heard her go, flush and even wash her hands all by herself. I waited for the inevitable whisper at our door asking if she could crawl into bed with us. But it never came. Instead, I heard those little feet march back down the hall and put themselves back to bed - on the top bunk no less! I distinctly remember thinking to myself - sitting there in the dark in the middle of the night - WOW! She is getting so big and independent!


Second - Megan no longer thinks Prince Charming and Cinderella are the couple to beat. Troy and Gabriella have taken over. My mom bought her the High School Musical DVD along with a "dance mat" game for Christmas, and that was it! Instead of hearing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" over and over in my head each day, I now know all the words to "Get'cha Head in the Game" and "Breaking Free." Surprisingly it's a refreshing change. She and Molly almost daily play what they call "Mommy & Daddy" - their own version of house with all their dollies. They take turns playing the parental roles and I am always asked to be the Grandma! Recently however I heard Megan say to Molly "I know! How about I be the mommy, my name is Gabriella - and you be the daddy. Your name is Troy." And then she proceeded to act out parts of the movie with Molly. Too funny.

Third - when we read books lately, Megan has been picking long chapter books. Ones with very few pictures. She really gets into the stories. Asking questions about what the characters look like, act like, and feel like. I can see the wheels spinning as she recreates the story in her head. Molly still picks arms full of board books and Megan is like "Mom, you can read those short, little kid ones to Molly first. I can wait!"

And finally, in the car yesterday, I had a Raffi CD playing but Megan wasn't singing along. I asked her what was wrong and she said "I don't like Raffi anymore. I want to listen to Hannah Montana!" What she meant was she wanted to hear the duet by Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus, "Ready, Set, Don't Go." She's heard it on the radio in my car before and she's seen the Hannah Montana show on Disney a few times.

It made me smile. Our toddler is long gone. We now have a full blown KID on our hands. While I know we aren't exactly packing her up for college just yet - I can't help but feel like the words of this song are ringing true long before I thought they would!