Val's been in her new room for 2 days and so far, it's going great. She
rolled right in there like it's where she's meant to be and hardly even
said goodbye to Andrea. She knew one girl in the class fairly well so
it's now all about that kid.

She's even napped both days, so that's huge. I know it was the right
thing for her.

The director chatted with her now-former teacher, who feels awful that
it ended that way. Let's be real - we feel awful, too. But she made
the choice to say those hateful/merely ignorant things to me and more
importantly, she chose to not keep her cool or seek backup or call us
when Val was crying that day.

Today, she wore her ladybug dress that Grandma Kathy sent for her
birthday. It's perfect - her new classroom is the Ladybugs! So perfect
that she felt the need to interrupt her dance teacher to shout 'I have a
ladybug dress and I'm a ladybug!'

Like how I slipped in the bit about dance class? Yes, she's taking
Dancing Tots. They do 15 minutes of tap and 15 minutes of ballet while
I get to sit on my ass and read a book. This is by no means the
activity I would've chosen for her - the sheer volume of gender
stereotypes that come with it astound me still - but she chose it with
great vigor. At some point, I have to trust that what we're teaching her
(and hopefully, showing her) about being strong women who make solid
choices will trump all that.

In other news, I'm sort of showing but it's more like that 'ate too many
donuts' stage. This stage in a post c-section body is seriously, no
sexy. The upside to this lack of concrete showing means I can continue
to not tell my work just yet. I should, yes, but there are so many
issues with that place that I'm still hesitant. Soon, I guess. Before
it becomes more than just donuts.