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.

Claire Helen and I agree this is the perfect little girl's dress. Green corduroy, good for running and climbing, not too pricey. My way of demonstrating affection is to buy it, though we don't strictly need another dress. Her way is to wear it 5-6 times per week.


Running with feathers, and Mat's Aunt Jane and Uncle Mark in the background. We had a great visit with them, and only wish we'd gotten more non-blurry pictures.



Hiking in the cascades this weekend. Kind of a trippy sideways picture, yes? Kids did a great job, not fazed at all by the fifty billion mosquitoes, and even walking on their own 50% of the time. Go kiddos.

And I wondered what on earth we were going to do today

Off to ride bikes. I think Claire Helen would sleep on her new bike (a hand me down from a cousin) if she could.

Claire Helen and Claire Helen's fuzzy mommy in a bouncy house at a neighbor's birthday party earlier today(a buddy who was at creative arts camp with her a couple weeks ago, and who yells from her backyard to ours to see if Claire Helen and Simon are available to play. Good fun.) . You want to be all curmudgeonly and, "Oh, what ever happened to pin the tail on the donkey and a sheet cake?" but MAN that was fun. Claire Helen and Simon were in there for hours, bouncing higher and higher and higher, too out of breath to laugh. You can't quite tell from the angle, but she's about 2 feet in the air in that picture, grinning like a fool.

Claire Helen's birthday party, lo these many months ago. Don't try anything stupid, lady. My muffin. Arrrr.

Blowing out the candle on her cupcake tower/cake. She was VERY concerned about getting that top one up there.

Last night we hosted Mat's cousin's family overnight for the second weekend in a row. The kids are now convinced that's what happens on weekends. They're going to be mighty disappointed next Saturday, with an empty top bunk and only Mom and Dad to chase around.

Wow, it’s been a busy couple of months. We’ve been flying all around the country, cousin hopping, hosting people here, and generally powering through the summer. It’s been great, but we’re glad to be at home for a month before our big (National Lampoon’s) Great Britain Vacation.

What prompted me to sit down and write today is fear that I will someday forget Sumya, Claire Helen’s imaginary friend. She’s always been an imaginary friend sort of kid, but in the last month “Sumya” has really become the archetypal imaginary sidekick you always hear about. She in present at every interaction, and even gets the blame for transgressions I’m fairly certain were not her fault (unless you know of a lot of gnome-fairies who can draw on walls).

Sumya, who is apparently half gnome half fairy, has purple and green hair, wears purple and green clothes, and used to live in a purple house, but now lives in a green house. She has a baby brother and sister named Funny and Binty. She lives in the forest and has a birthday every single day, but doesn’t yet know how to blow out birthday candles. She’s 4 feet tall and sleeps underwater. Her mama doesn’t appear to be very on the ball, letting her baby brother “take her ball when she was still using it” and “not letting her play big kid games because she said they were grown up games but they weren’t.” Other than that glaring difference (ahem), she is apparently much like Claire Helen and Simon’s mommy. Sumya attends Claire Helen’s preschool, as well as another preschool where she learns French and eats cookies. She eats at a table in our living room, under the rug.

Pretty neat, eh?