First day of preschool!

Well, it's old hat by now, but we took pictures anyhow the first day. She is so attached to her teacher from the previous year that she wants to get littler and go back to her class, which I am taking as a sign that the place she goes is fantastic, if they can arouse such passion in little hearts.

Excerpt of an e-mail to a friend who asked about Claire Helen's and Simon's personalities*:

For CH, creative and inquisitive, probably. Her imagined world is very complicated, and very complete, and she demands her knowledge of the world to be similarly complete. She throws herself more fully into her imaginary play than the average bear. She's into cool stuff- meerkats and prime ministers, not the princesses and dinosaurs of her peers. I dig that. Claire Helen is very, very slow to warm up, according to those little quizzes. She does not like it AT ALL when everyone in the room is looking at her, and it's a rare grown up (and frankly a rare kid) she bestows her favor upon. But I am kind of surprised to learn that she is a leader, once she gets her bearing, generally the architect of whatever 3 year old plans are afoot. But a surprise one- other moms are always telling me their kid doesn't let other kids boss them around, right before Claire Helen successfully bosses them around. She doesn't really get het up as often as other 3 year olds; has a great sense of perspective for her age. She's insanely stoic- BROKE HER HAND and wouldn't cry about it, for god's sake. I think these things are kind of linked, because she has always really *gotten* social cues- a stern look is enough to get her to stop behavior; she stops a rare performance the nanosecond someone looks bored. She can tell when you're trying to pull one over on her. And now she is learning to use that skill to get her way. She is in no way meek, but the force of her personality gets underestimated, at least by grown ups. I think that will come in handy for her, actually.

I would say she is like me, but she's not as much of a pleaser as I was, and I wasn't as creative as she is.

Simon is too young to write an exposition, but something about social and perpetually sunny. Is convinced in a very fundamental way that the world is his oyster. I think it's going to be very easy for him to be happy in life. He assumes that everyone is delighted by him, and so they are. He likes PURPLE and SPARKLY and BUBBLES. Flashy.


*A totally self absorbed and narcissistic little exercise, but what else are blogs for, than narcissistic ramblings about your children? Nothing, I say.