Esti is three!

Our beautiful girl had a beautiful birthday party, meaning that there was the right ratio of adults to kids (2.5 to 1), everyone was in a good mood, the cake came out tasty, and at no point did the birthday girl melt down and start sobbing on the floor.
In general, except as concerns her brother, Esti is a model citizen. She misses Nirmala and Romesh (45 hours a week for two years = not trivial) but has made the transition to Little Tufts beautifully. The doctor at her 3-year checkup - where she did not cry when she got her flu shot - described her as growing nicely, coordinated above her age level (running while pumping the opposite arm to the leg that's moving: apparently a 4-year-old skill, who knew? I still can't always do it), 86th percentile height, 70th weight. She blew out the candles on her birthday cake in one decisive puff. Whatever happens, this girl can hold her own.

Emotions on starting first grade

Little Tufts did a great job preparing the kids for the transition to public school. They even had a "next year week" where they practiced wolfing down their lunches in 20 mins, calling the teachers by their last names, and going to "specials" like art, music, and gym. This is Henry's assignment from the Little Tufts bulletin board in August.

I love the drawing: all the anonymous people as stick figures, only his friend Veronica in color. (They also had to write one on what they were "nervous about." Henry mentioned taking the bus to the after-school program. One classmate, starting first grade at 7, wrote in shaky script: "Pretty much everything.")

Here is the actual composition of his class, color-wise. Graphing is their first "math concept."  (God help us, the curriculum from what we gathered at a teacher conference and at Parent Night, seems almost totally vacuous.  Or rather, it's kind of cool but seems developmentally appropriate as they say for 3-year-olds, except for certain subjects like Phonics -- now called "Fundations" -- which they try to make entertaining and manage only to make confusing.)

Anyway, you can see as how my blue-eyed blondie fits right in.

Apparently this year's state math standards no longer include 1/3 or 1/4 under "fractions" in first grade: only 1/2.  (The teacher managed to tell us this with a somewhat straight face at Parent Night.)  But... well... at least they are good on the parent communication bit. And the emotional stuff.  Never had much use for that myself, but wouldn't it be nice if my kids turned out a little better-adjusted than I am?

Love the picture here too. The excitement/anxiety lines. In a way, it's a blessing that the stuff they do in school isn't actually challenging.  You may not catch me saying this next year, when they start the SECOND-GRADE reading curriculum with Frog and Toad ("Toad thinks he looks funny in his bathing suit. Draw Toad a new bathing suit that will let him feel comfortable coming out of the water." -- I swear I am not making this up.) But for now, the infantile curriculum leaves him more time to adjust to all the new rules and systems and jargon, and more energy to withstand a grueling 10-hour day of "centers" and "wall board work" and socializing and gym and lunch and recess and stuff, plus a bus-ride from school to after-school in the middle.

And I have a feeling he'll pick up the fractions anyway.

First day of school - Sept 6, 2012

This brings us up to September. Henry was so excited. So were we. It was all so new. We made him a lunch the night before (cheese sandwich, V-8, banana, hard-boiled egg) and were careful to catch the "walking bus" of kids from our block, who leave promtly at 7:55 for the five-minute walk to school. Our neighbors were excited too. One of them baked scones for the PTA!

This is the schoolyard. The buzzer signal to line up goes off at 8:05, and anyone arriving after 8:10, we have been told, needs to go to the office to get a tardy slip. This hasn't happened to us yet, but I'm sure it will.

Thanks to my mom and dad, Henry is all equipped for the school year - he even has a brand new Swiss Army backpack.  I think it looks much cooler than the cheesy Sponge Bob or Spiderman bags some of his classmates have. But it's still bigger than him.

The lining-up part didn't work so well on the first day.

It took a while, so Henry got to chat with his classmate Zeke. Zeke's mom is the school librarian; he also plays Arlington town soccer, so Henry sees him on Sundays too.  Remember that disconnectedness urban nomad stuff I was saying this summer?  I think we are about to develop a very strong, perhaps overwhelmingly and excessively strong, sense of living in Arlington.  As a basically nomadic person, I find it mildly odd to see the same people in the neighborhood every day, to be recognized by the teller at the bank etc. I have learned to like getting to know my neighbors - some of them are cool, and of course given the demographics around here they share our tastes in a lot of things - but it feels like a totally weird coincidence (though of course it's anything but) to see them again on the walk to school!

Henry's still in line. The lady in the blue sleeveless dress on the right is the school principal.

Oh, and did you realize that our property taxes also pay for crossing guards? I had no idea.  Normally I'm not out at 8am, or if I am, then heading the other way, into Cambridge. But there they are. Stopping traffic so we can cross. One block from a perfectly functional traffic light with a walking signal. We say hello and thank you and maybe a few words about the weather. Incredibly enjoyable because superfluous.

Family and music together

Gathering to commemmorate my Grandma Asya, who died 10 years before Esti was born (Esther is named after her).


It seems someone must have given Esti some Silly Putty.

Aaron has been taking guitar lessons and is making amazingly quick progress.

Just in time to jam (or at least pluck out some "Ode To Joy") with his nephew!

Anya&Nick come to visit

The weekend after we went to Plainfield, Anya and Nick came here to introduce Mila to his great-grandpa in Boston. Esti and Isaiah picked up right where they had left off... under the covers! (I didn't tell you the part about how she slept in his room in Plainfield, and he got to wake her up in the morning. Or about how at one point he was overheard saying "Hey Esti, come here, I want to show you something," and then reappeared some time later not wearing any pants...)

Peek-a-boo!

(Kids and digital cameras. Sigh.)

Boys at breakfast time.

Inevitably: from the dress-up box.

And from the garden.  Remember summer?

Plainfield - children's supper

Pause

I've noticed there are relatively few pictures of Ken and me - or for that matter, of Anya or Nick or Ata - in the pix I've posted so far.  It's almost all pictures of the kids, even more than before.  Is this how you know you're middle-aged? 

Plainfield - blueberry picking

Strategies of blueberry picking differ.

Some choose to skip it altogether.

Some go for "quality, not quantity."

Because only truly perfect berries are worth picking. (And what can you do about that? Now in first grade his teacher says it takes him 10-15 minutes to write a sentence. But what sentences they are. In response to the prompt "I made a prediction" while reading a Magic Treehouse book, he wrote: "I made a prediction that the scroll will save them in theyre darkest hour.")

Others have no such scruples.

Ultimately it takes all kinds.