how to not listen so kids won't talk

The past two school mornings I've followed a pretty ruthless policy of changing the subject or refusing to engage on the topic of preschool. It made Wednesday morning vastly more pleasant (no tears until drop-off!) but then maybe backfired when she apparently cried for a long time *after* drop-off, leading me to wonder if she just needs to cry for two hours. This morning, though, I tried it again, and we had a tearful farewell, but at the same time she was getting out pens and paper to draw. Taking the initiative in starting an activity seems like a huge step up from just being overwhelmed in misery, and she apparently had a pretty good morning. And she ate some snack *and* some lunch.

And then in the middle of writing this post, she came up and asked for "Llama Llama Misses Mama", and in the middle of *that* she started crying and saying "no more preschool", so we snuggled and talked and snuggled and talked and she was upset upset upset until I finally announced that she didn't have school again until Tuesday and that was three days we didn't need to worry about it and it was time for dancing, and I put on music and stood up with her and she said "no dancing" but was smiling and distracted from her woe and a successful rest of evening was had.

I know those parenting books told me I was supposed to acknowledge my kid's feelings and encourage her to express them, but honestly I think she just works herself up. Not dwelling on things seems like a perfectly reasonable life skill and one I've never been great at, but maybe one it's not too early to introduce. I guess I have to make it clear she *can* tell me things, in case there's something I don't already know that I need to know about, but "it sucks when Mama leaves" is not actually new information.

(I really hated the theory that she just needed two hours of crying whenever she was finally allowed to break down; the obvious temptation was to let her do them at school, when we are paying considerable sums of money for her to be someone else's problem for awhile. But of course we want school to be a fun and happy place, so strategically I guess I would have to put up with them.)

also, ARCs

On a completely different topic: how different, typically, is an ARC from the final published book? I got an ARC of Tamora Pierce's _Mastiff_ (because my mom is awesome) (and yes cereph, I'm sending it to you next) and it was mostly SPOILERS really good, I was way more into the main plot than I have been in a Tamora Pierce novel in a while (don't get me wrong, I love them, but I'm often more into the characters than the plot), but there were a few things in it that just... didn't make sense. Also a relatively high typo rate, but I expected that; are continuity errors something that are typically still being fixed after an ARC goes out? I guess I'll just get in the library queue for it when it comes out and see for myself if I notice changes, but I was surprised. I haven't read a lot of ARCs but I thought they were pretty much the text of the book without all the final packaging.

(Also I would love to discuss the Beka Cooper series further with people - maybe when _Mastiff_ comes out for real?)