Now We Are Six

...lots to catch up on, most notably Peanut's 6th birthday and birthday party. Here are a few shots of her actual day and then subsequent celebration.

Daddy knew that this Hello Kitty lip gloss,nail polish, gosh knows what else cosmetic kit which,to me, is a rash and a half waiting to happen, would make her smile more than a pony would....and he was right!


Checking out the organic, all-natural, hypo-allergenic offerings with her brother




A sliding lip gloss. This takes the cake.




The Princess Party- on a beautiful, sunny, Indian summer 65 degree day



















Happy Birthday, Angel!!!
...lastly, sometimes you just hear the darndest things in the darndest places. In this case it was Target; at checkout, seeing all of the birthday supplies, our cashier asked Portia if it were her birthday and how old she was. She then proceeded to recite A.A Milne's Now We are Six, and in a very poetic voice at that:

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

IF ONLY.

Who needs a white Xmas when you can have a white Halloween?

The snow (yes, snow, yes, it's October 29th) started falling around noon today. Marc and I were hitting squash balls after practicing with the children and rather downplayed their shouts of glee as they wandered outside waiting for us to finish up. Racing down to the courts (which aren't windowed, so we hadn't a clue what was truly going on out there), they announced: "It looks like Christmas out there! Everything's covered with snow!" Low and behold, everything was covered, it came out of nowhere, and it hasn't stopped all day. Hugo's exuberant commentary, as we drove home, fat snowflakes caking our windshield: "It's FINALLY snowing!! The season I've been waiting for!! The best season of all!! There's so much, the snow is obscuring the windows!"

F-I-V-E

What a year for my little girl! Started 2 new schools, become a confident awesome little skier, plays piano, swims like a fish, become ever better best friends with her brother, if that's possible ... it has been a full, fun year. It has ended with a little voice in the shower tonight which quietly called out to me when I reminded her that this is her last night of being five: "Could I just have a moment to relax?" Forever the sweetest, most easy-going kid I know.

Way behind on posts for Sept and October...so, for now, I'll leave it with this post dedicated to my birthday girl. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, you'll be a whole six years old and will, with great likelihood, need to serve me up a spoon of nutella to jolt my system into believing gear. You're an angel, and we're so lucky to spend our lives with you.

A few recent snipets of Peanut, including yesterday's big adventure to the "Pagoda"...




Friday's school birthday celebration with chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes & pink cream cheese frosting







Cool as a cucumber...just getting marked





Told to close her eyes, and, voila, one second later, done deal!


Relishing the sun and warmth at the beach today, last day of five

Just expressing myself

My mom jots things down a lot, she writes a lot on random pieces of scrap that I've even seen her yank out of the trash so she can scribble my words down before she forgets them. Not sure why she's so awed by what I say sometimes. I found these scribbled notes on her desk today, things I apparently said. (She's got notebooks filled from when I was teeny; they're fun to look at!)
______________
Since Daddy travels a lot these days, Mommy always sends him off with "Have a safe flight!" That just seems a little odd to me, so I responded with:

"Mama, Daddy can't control if he has a safe flight." Basic, right?
______________
This evening, since I like order and predictability, I called out from my bedroom to her in her bedroom "I am now prioritizing what I wear, Mama! In fact, I started prioritizing last night in my prioritizing drawers." Logical.
______________
Oh, yeah, and then tonight, I was showering, and Mommy came in and asked me if I had soaped up yet, to which I responded: "I washed my face but I wasn't inspired to soap anything else." Just answering the question.
______________
One other thing that amazes me since I really do love music is how the singers remember all their words! I love to sing along, but today, I marveled to Mommy since a song was playing I didn't really know: "How do these singers manage to master these lyrics?"
______________

First Day

It's hard to believe, but both littles are now in elementary school. Half days first week for kindergarteners are a little godsend for parents, at least ones like me who still have a foot in the 92nd Street Y Little Explorers class. Off we paraded with umbrellas this morning after a really great, full summer. I am happy to say I am not the teary mess I was 2 years ago when I first sent Hugo off into the land of 'guess what, teachers get to spend more time with your kid than you do now' ... adding insult to injury that year was infiltrating a breakfast hosted by a dear friend, walking into her living room of nursing mothers. And so started the flood of tears. This year, no nursing mothers in sight, and while there's a certain sadness, there's also a comfort knowing the 2 angels are a stone's throw from one another on campus. Portia is settled in her classroom which is familiar since it was also Hugo's K classroom. Different cast of teachers, including a brand new one to the school. Peanut seemed happy to be there as we said our goodbyes this morning; parting words last night at bedtime: "I'm so excited for tomorrow, Mama." And easygoing sweetheart that she is, she assessed the various dresses and skirt/top combos we'd chosen for school and said: "That's an option, yes, that's an option...I'll decide in the morning." And decide she did, within half a second of getting up- which was also unexpectedly painless. She's a sleep in child 200% and so when she got up with no prompting at 7:15 ready to face the day everything just got off to an easy start. Chachi will miss his friends who were in class with him last year and have moved on to 3rd grade; but he'll be a grown up 2nd grader in class with new 1st graders this year. I am sitting here at my desk looking at a lineup of his kindergarten artwork and a sweet picture he drew of himself at a desk with two chairs. Each child was asked to announce his/her goals: Subtitling his picture was his goal: "I want to learn to read and write better." Well, sweetheart, I have to say, you've more than met this goal. You're nearly finished with the seventh and last Harry Potter book. Way to go!!! What'll be next?

You are both quite the little racers, I know:

(Labor Day road race, approaching finish line)



BUT, let's craaawwwl through elementary school, promise?


(pre morning WET trek to school this a.m.)

LOVE you.

Elders

From the mouth of the little boy who, when asked what he wants to be when he grows up, says: "Well, I want to be a daddy aaaand ... have 12 kids aaaand, oh, I also want to be president..." comes the following this morning at breakfast in response to his sister's getting too close for his comfort with her yogurt (he DEEEspises yogurt):

"PLEASE!! Portia!! You must respect your elders!" To me, then, he turns: "I am Portia's elder, and she has to respect my dislike of yogurt!"

Not that I would wish the vagaries of president-hood upon anyone, but he's in line.

Endlich!

Headline News:
Reporting from Germany from the second yellow house in our lives: Chachi's smile, for the first time, now reveals a big hole and an incoming tooth. Hard to say what is more exciting for him - pain-free eating pizza again (until neighbor increasingly wobbly tooth decides to follow suit, which looks like any week now) or imagining how many euros the German tooth fairy will leave under his pillow...