Francesca turns 5

Water, water everywhere. For Father's Day this year, Matthew took Francesca out for her first kayaking adventure on Tomales Bay (about an hour north of San Francisco). Then in summer camp at her old school, Francesca took six straight weeks of swim class five days per week. She was awfully cute going to school every morning in a bathing suit or bikini and truly loved going in a pool every day. The classes got her completely comfortable in the water and now she'll happily cannonball off the edge of a pool, float around, glide underwater, stay underwater for unsettlingly long periods of time, and do the preliminary moves for truly swimming.

Since six weeks of being in the water was nowhere near enough, Francesca has gone to her 'aunt' Margo's pool at every opportunity and she has brought various friends along with her. Of course, sometimes no one but Francesca wants to go into the water, like when it is 60 degrees -- hypothermia is a small price to pay in her book! When we did have hot days at home this summer, it was on to the slip 'n' slide - yes, in the front yard and, yes, Matthew was out there too in his swim trunks.

In late August we spent a few days in the Santa Cruz/Monterey area with some friends and Francesca went straight into the quite cold Pacific Ocean, laughing at being tossed around by not-so-small waves. That long weekend we also went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium - the jellyfish continue to be the most magical exhibit - and on the way back we stopped at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk for rides and Francesca's first mini-golf. For some unknown reason, after sinking each hole the she would jump straight up in the air and proclaim "VINI-GOLF!!" (maybe that's what they call it in Napa?)

The first week of September, Francesca began Kindergarten and a new school, Archway, an independent school near us in Oakland. Less than two months into it, she is fully integrated and loving it. Francesca has never been so tired mentally or physically but it is a wonderful, satisfied tired that is the result of being engaged and interested all day long. Francesca throws herself just as much into basketball and playing tag, music and dance as she does into natural science and Spanish, math patterns and reading. Francesca can truly read now, including books like Green Eggs and Ham, and it is a wonder to see her whole being light up when she reads signs and books that she has never seen before.

A few days after starting Kindergarten, Francesca turned five on September 9 (she is the youngest in her kindergarten class). Many moons ago she declared that she wanted big jumpy houses, and lots of them, for her party so we and she and 22 of her closest friends and about that many of their parents went to Pump It Up (aka "the inflatable party zone") to celebrate. Not only were there jumpy houses the size of which were truly astonishing but there were also huge inflated slides, obstacle courses, you name it. After a couple of hours of full bore playing, we moved into the cake room where Francesca promptly beelined to the huge inflatable throne ~ she hopped right up, put on her crown, and refused to leave her throne for the remainder of the party, quite rightly deciding that cake could be brought to her rather than her going to the cake.

Speaking of festivities, the recent Halloween festivities were great ones. They began with a walkathon on October 28 at Francesca's school in support of the arts and music program - all the photos of her in Ariel costume are from the walkathon. The "laps" were around the block the school is on and each corner had a special something - face/hair painting, stickers, a plastic foot to add to your necklace for each lap - and Francesca walked just about two miles. Had she funneled the energy she spent on playing tag and basketball into walking, it would have been about ten miles.

The Halloween never-ending party continued with a school trip to Peterson's Farm, a bee and pumpkin farm, in Petaluma. It was Francesca's very first time on a big yellow school bus and she had a blast, reporting that she sat next to a second grader (actually, a "grader," as she refers to all kids beyond kindergarten) on the way there and sat next to and sang with a classmate all the way back. As for the farm, she loved everything except the cows, which apparently were snotty and therefore "gross." Finally, on to Halloween itself. There was a carnival at Francesca's school in the afternoon (yes, we chose a party school for our only child) followed by pumpkin carving at home and wrapping up with trick or treating with her very, very dear friend Mia .

Allow me to close with a comment Francesca directed to me just the other night - "Mama, when I grow up I want to be as bossy as you are!"

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