Post Irony

Abby started prekindergarten today. Miss Selma’s doesn’t allow parents to get out of their cars, so I couldn’t get any first-day action shots. I had to settle for a session in the ghetto studio after I picked her up. (That mark on her arm is the remnants of a temporary pirate tattoo she got in Branson 10 days ago.) She was pretty shook up by having to change buildings and teachers and the fact that many of her classmates for the last 1.5 years were defecting for public pre-K. She didn’t go to sleep until about 12:30 a.m. the night before. But most of the kids in her class were also in her 2- and 3-year-old classes so she felt good about the whole thing. “I’m not anxious about pre-K anymore,” she said when I picked her up.

Strobist: SB-600 in shoot-through umbrella directly above and another SB-600 in a shoot-through umbrella propped up on the floor at her feet. SB-26 hair light in homemade snoot at camera left behind subject. I was going for the clam shell effect.

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Abby went in for 4-year check-up and service on Wednesday. She’s 42 inches tall and 37 pounds. Right where she should be. Blood pressure is good and reflexes work properly. The doctor wasn’t worried about her nosebleeds and gray tooth that resulted from crashing into a wall head-first about a month ago.

Her vision is 20-20 and they also checked out her hearing. She had to put up her hand every time she heard the tone in the earphones. At first she just kind a raised it a little bit but with the enthusiastic feedback she was getting from the nurse she soon was throwing her hand in the air like she was trying to get rid of a lit firecracker. Her ears work fine.

She also got her last immunizations. Four shots. Two in each leg. She didn’t cry or try to fight the nurses, but she allowed as how she didn’t want any more needles poking her.

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Classic Fathers Day. Abby made me the traditional breakfast in bed and then we went out to pick wild red plums to make some Uncle Slappy’s Plum Delicious Red Plum Jelly. It was hot. By the time we were through Abby and I were pouring water over our heads to cool us off enough to walk back to the car.

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We finally got around to having a proper birthday celebration for Abby. We had a little thing at the Jump Zone for her friends from school and then we had another little thing at home for all her grandparents and aunts. It looked like a birthday bomb went off in the living room

It turns out you can get a cake made to look like anything these days. I think it might have something to do with all those reality shows about cake makers. Abby wanted a Princess Tiana cake, so Gina got Community Bakery to make a cake that looked like Princess Tiana. The top part was easy. They just used a Princess Tiana Barbie doll, but the bottom dress part is all cake. I was pretty impressed. Maybe I should watch one of those cake-making shows. That would probably blow my mind.

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Wasn’t it just yesterday that Abby was sleeping in this thing as a baby crib? When we moved into the new place we converted her bed from the toddler configuration to the full-on regular bed configuration. She’s going to be sleeping in her own place before we know it. She picked out the hideous bed clothes ensemble, by the way.

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Abby’s fourth birthday was Wednesday. We went to Buffalo Grill (Abby’s pick) with Aunts Jodie and Laney for a little birthday dinner.

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Abby and Gina riding the carousel at the Little Rock Zoo.

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Abby hasn’t quite got the hang of sleeping in a bed without side rails.

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Abby’s school put on its end-of-the-year program last week. They practiced for about three months for thing and it went off with just a few hitches. It was Abby’s debut performance in front of an audience. All the rags gave her a good review.

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It was pretty stormy in the state last weekend, so Abby, Gina and I took a trip on Sunday to check out Falling Water Falls in the Ozark National Forest between Ben Hur and Witts Springs. We also stopped by Six Finger Falls a few miles downstream. I wasn’t feeling very photographically inspired so I don’t have much to show. We had a good time, though. Abby caught a huge terrapin turtle and we saw a little snake, so she got her Bindi the Jungle Girl on a little bit.

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