Andrea’s Weblog

Elizabeth started pre-k in August. She loves her teacher, Miss Kim and is thrilled that her best friend Katie is in her class. She attends Open Door Preschool, a non-sectarian preschool that everyone raves about. It’s a 25 minute drive from home, so Elena and I usually find things to do so we don’t have to spend 2 hours of our day in the car.

Here’s a photo of her first day, both looking a bit wary:

Elena and Elizabeth are very close, so you can imagine how disappointed she was when Elizabeth went off on an adventure without her:

Elizabeth started pre-k in August. She loves her teacher, Miss Kim and is thrilled that her best friend Katie is in her class. She attends Open Door Preschool, a non-sectarian preschool that everyone raves about. It’s a 25 minute drive from home, so Elena and I usually find things to do so we don’t have to spend 2 hours of our day in the car.

Here’s a photo of her first day, both looking a bit wary:

Elena and Elizabeth are very close, so you can imagine how disappointed she was when Elizabeth went off on an adventure without her:

The McPherson Family is pleased to announce that Elizabeth McPherson has been promoted to official dishwasher’s assistant. After several years serving as the official animal feeder, undertaking the responsibility of feeding two cats and a dog, her superiors feel she has shown the initiative necessary for the increased responsibility. Elizabeth will begin transition from Official Animal Feeder to Assistant Dishwasher effective immediately. Elizabeth will study under Frank McPherson, Head Dishwasher (among other titles).

Elizabeth will also undertake training an apprentice, Elena McPherson, who will gradually take over as the McPherson Family’s Official Animal Feeder. The transition is expected to go smoothly and there should be no disruption to daily operations. Also note that Elizabeth will maintain her position as McPherson Family Table Setter Extrordinaire.

A month afterward, I’m not quite at the point where I can talk much about it, but my dad passed away on May 29. He was living with Multiple Sclerosis and had an accident with his wheelchair. So, despite his illness, it was quite a shock. We rushed up to Maryland to be with my family.

I was very worried how Elizabeth would take it and if she could attend the funeral. She was such a trooper though. She seemed to understand that we were going up to say good-bye to grandpa’s body. Over the course of several days, she asked a lot of questions and seemed to get it sorted out in her head. Elizabeth will still talk about grandpa out of the blue and tell me how much she misses him.

I’m sad that Elena will never know her Grandpa Fricke. Since Frank’s dad passed away before Elizabeth was born, they never go to know him either. Luckily, they have an awesome Aunt and Uncle and wonderful grandmas to spoil them as their grandpas would expect.

Here’s my last photo of Elena with her grandpa.

After watching the musical Annie on the way home from St. Augustine, Elizabeth was inspired to “clean the whole house.” If any of you aren’t familiar with the story, Mrs. Hannigan has the orphans clean the entire orphanage on their hands and knees. Despite this daunting task, the orphans keep singing merrily as they scrub the floors. Who knew that Elizabeth would draw such inspiration from this to clean her playroom without me even asking her to!

Cleaning is a source of a lot of arguments in this house. It takes a lot of restraint for me not to turn cleaning into a power struggle with her, so today’s victory is very sweet. Now when she tells me that she can’t clean her playroom all by herself, I can remind her of today’s thorough job!

If you’re looking for a movie for a preschool girl, I highly recommend Annie. Who knew singing orphans could be so inspiring!