Our sweet little Sam has turned into a full-blown boy these days.  He’s always running, throwing, pushing and testing.  He’s experimenting constantly – what happens when he turns this, pulls that or pushes a button (including the buttons our patience!).  I know it’s all part of his little experiments with the world, but it’s a bit maddening sometimes.

He is getting more expressive – talking more, voicing his opinions, singing loudly enough that we can hear him, and arguing when things don’t go his way.  It’s fun to see his personality display itself a little bit more.  He’s still very shy around other people, but as he’s getting more expressive and silly with the family.

He loves school.  He loves his friends and his activities.  His teachers report that he’s very quiet with them, but that he’s much more interested in his friends than his work.  We’ve been brainstorming with his teachers for how to keep him focused on the task in front of him and not so focused on throwing things against the wall or making fart jokes.  Yep, he’s definitely turned into a full-on boy.

When we can focus his experimenting and testing constructively, he loves to play with Legos, blocks, and his wooden tool set.  As much as he loves to build, he loves to play with his sister more than anything.  More often than not if I ask him what he wants to do, his answer is “whatever Clarey wants.”  She creates big elaborate games and he’s an enthusiastic side kick.  His favorite role is of a cat named Blueha.  He’s a Space Cat who lives on the moon, a royal cat who lives in a castle, an underwater cat who lives with mermaids, but always a cat named Blueha.

It’s fun to see the new stage in Sam’s life – even if it’s a bit of a challenge to parent through it.  He’s coming into his own and it’s a wonderful world that he’s building.

 

 

Six is a magical age, at least for our girl.  She’s at a lovely intersection between independence and understanding of the world, but still deeply rooted in wonder and imagination.  She’s enthralled by everything that she learns about – whether it’s Martin Luther King Jr, multiplication, or fairies.  She meets every bit of new information with her trademark enthusiasm and excitement, but now it’s tempered with the ability to analyze and rationalize a little bit.

She’s our little social butterfly and is friends with everyone that she meets.  First grade has been a wonderful way for her to meet new friends and she’s become very tight with many children in her class.  Her little group has started a game at recess called the Goof Crew. I don’t follow all of it, but they started as 4 Goof Bunnies on the planet SpecBoo.  It’s morphed over the school year and now they have moved to a new planet (Planet Bowler) and have become a crew of Goof Ocelots, Goof Kitties and Goof Doggies.  They’ve also added in number and I think there are 12 of them that regularly play together.  The core group is Clare’s best school friends – G, A and her best buddy Gabe.

I’ve been concerned that starting school would dull some of Clare’s signature style and sparkle.  I suspect that peer pressure will eventually push her towards a more… Traditional wardrobe, but so far she continues to embrace her creative outfits.

She is still quite the bookworm.  She loves reading to herself and reads really, really, really fast.  She discovered the Rainbow Magic fairy book series and has devoured her way through most of the series.  When it got to where she could read an entire book in about an hour, I steered her towards the Rescue Princess series.  She’s just started on those but I suspect it won’t take her long to work through that series either.

None of these things about Clare are particularly unique.  She’s also been imaginative, bookish, and social.  She’s also been mixed with a fair amount of feistiness too – testing boundaries, talking back, and really struggling to express big emotions in a constructive way.  But (for now) she’s settled into a really lovely phase where here natural sweetness and kindness is coming through first.  She still has the occasional tantrum or off day, but it’s so rare that we can usually tell that something is bothering her.  She’s also becoming much more emotionally mature and we can talk about her frustration, anger, sadness, anxiety and other big feelings and help her work through them.  It’s a really lovely place to be.

“It’s like I’m woven in a blanket of your arms!”