Francesca at 5.5

The first set of pictures are from December 2006. We celebrated Christmas at home and then right after Christmas escaped to the Hyatt Tamaya outside of Albaquerque, New Mexico for five days of fun and to welcome in the new year. The first day was spent exploring and horseback riding and then the largest storm in decades dumped a ton of snow. Francesca loved it and spent lots of time frolicking in the snow or playing in the pool and hot tub surrounded by snow. When we got too tuckered out and cold we repaired to the hotel's enormous fun room where backgammon and checkers were the games of choice. In our room the game of choice was Uno and, as Francesca proudly proclaims, she is "ruthless" at Uno.

Our vacation was capped off by dinner on New Year's Eve at the peak of the Sandia Mountains at the "High Finance" restaurant, which we got to by taking the world's longest tramway. You can see Francesca at the restuarant enjoying one of her favorite foods, calamari. For the last few months, her absolute favorite has been sushi (salmon and tuna and yellowtail rolls) and she clamors to go to Sushiya, our local Japanese restaurant, at least once or twice a week. Of course, she has struck up a great friendship with the sushi chef so we always sit at the bar.

The day after returning from New Mexico, we welcomed two new creatures into our home - the cats Toulouse (the orange one) and Giacomo (the grey one). Francesca loves her cats and they love her, often licking her on the nose.

The last six months have truly - and repeatedly - demonstrated just how well conviction works. With everything from learning to shoot baskets overhand to learning to do flips on bars to learning to jump rope, Francesca has set her mind to doing it, practiced and practiced and practiced, immediately upon making a bit of progress decided 'I'm great at this!,' and then gone on to really be great at it. It's been wonderful to see her go from a four-year old whose wild frustration at not being able to do things would prevent her from learning to a five-year old who has learned to set her mind to a goal and work at it until she gets there. One of the big ones this year was skiing (see pictures of Francesca in Tahoe with her very dear friend Mia) - after just a day or two she was able to manage the chair lift and beginner slope alone and declared that skiing feels like dancing and flying at the same time.

Speaking of goals, after seeing one live game of the UC Berkeley "Cal" women's basketball team Francesca decided that when she grows up she will got to Cal and be on the team, preferably the center forward. In March, Ioana was putting Francesca to bed and they have this conversation about Charles, a boy in her class:

F: Charles said that he is going to marry me
I: when did he say that?
F: when it was raining
I: today?
F: no, on Tuesday - we were in the ASP [after school program] room and it was raining and we were having snack and Charles said "when you grow up Francesca, I am going to marry you"
I: what did you say?
F: "I'm sorry but I won't be able to marry you because I'm going to be on a women's basketball team"

She has since decided that marrying Charles is actually a great idea and that she will manage to do that while playing basketball and being a jump rope teacher. On the more immediate horizon, Francesca will be taking swim lessons this summer and doing girls' soccer this fall. The big draw isn't really soccer but rather being on a girls team, wearing a uniform, and - she hopes - having cheerleaders.

Francesca has become great friends with lots of kids in her kindergarten class, including Fiona (pic of the two of them with arms around each other) and Martin (with her and Easter Bunny), aside from her husband to be. School is really a wonderful place for Francesca. Her favorite part is music and singing and she excels in any kind of reading or writing. To those of you who know her parents well, it will come as no surprise that Francesca always raises her hand to answer every single question asked.

In the last few pictures you can see Francesca's new hairdo, which she thought up herself. After getting quite a few inches lopped off, Francesca contemplated herself closely and quietly for a few minutes in the mirror and then said 'I know I'm still five. But now I really feel like I am six!'

The very last picture was taken at Francesca's first gymnastics performance. She continues to love to perform and on June 2 will have her first piano performance (after about three months of piano lessons). Francesca has decided to play Yankee Doodle - and has instructed us that for the funny part at the end we should just laugh "in our heads" instead of out loud. We've also continued to go to lots of performances - music and dance and theater. Francesca now insists on waiting after the show to meet the performers (see pictures of her with Dan Zanes and her favorite member of his band, Barbara Broussard).

When next we write Francesca will no longer be in Kindergarten but instead will be a 'grader'!

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