There’s good and bad to this. Getting the good out of the way first, she’s definitely not as shy as she used to be. And she’s made a couple of adorable little friends, most of whom have curly hair just like her.

The bad will take a little longer to enumerate. First, she’s a yakker. And she’s had to be separated from her pals a few times over the last couple of weeks. Second, she hasn’t played the yakking game very well. She tends to do most of the yakking when she should be listening and learning. She’s not the only one guilty of this particular crime in her class – the yakking disease seems to be contagious.

And although she’s a yakker with her friends, she still doesn’t participate very much in class. The teachers are having a difficult time evaluating her progress because she clams up around them.

Needless to say, I’m a little concerned, mostly because she’s going to be so very young when she starts kindergarten in the fall. She’ll first be turning five about a month after school begins, so she will definitely be the youngest in her class (hell, she missed the cutoff by three days). I want her to be as prepared as possible for the onslaught of public school.

We talked to her tonight about doing a better job of listening to her teachers in class. When she realized that we were gently berating her, she started running away and talking gibberish. No big surprise there, either. This is a work in progress and it’s going to take a lot of time. And a lot of deciphering gibberish to make sure she’s processed the message.