Madame Butterfl(ies)

Yesterday, Franny had her first dance recital. Knowing she was nervous about her big debut, we tried to prepare her with what to expect, but a room full of excited strangers, parents, and family proved too much for this sweet ballerina. After the troupe walked out hand in hand, Franny lasted all of about thirty seconds, before running off the stage. To her credit, she did return to the group for their second number, but her presence was again, short-lived. And, although the rest of the dancers did remain on the stage, only two actually danced while the rest stood still with very big eyes fixated on the crowd. Maybe they're really just too young for this kind of experience, or maybe they just haven't been dancing long enough to have the confidence to perform for an audience. I did feel bad for poor Franny's nervous butterflies, but was still was glad she took part. And I think for Franny, it was worth it all just to have her new recital costume!

Pee wee soccer

Along with four of her friends, Franny started a soccer class this morning. From the sidelines, I could see her little face either grinning from ear to ear with excitement or extremely focused on her task at hand. Coach Mike lead them through stretches, running, dribbling, and at the end, kicking a few goals. I was surprised to see her patient enough for dribbling--she loves to kick the ball as hard and far as she can. But she did a great job and had a great time. Thirty minutes passed much too quickly--we both can't wait until next week!

First day of soccer from T on Vimeo.

Hedgehog art

Once I was done with the Frog art, I proceeded to Franny's Hedgehog art (from when she was between two and three).    Although during this class she did use paint and crayons, more of it was centered on pasting.  Once I saw it on the wall, I was completely amazed at the difference between this collection and the Frog collection.  The art that she did create, revealed the incredible maturity her method underwent between then and now.  I think I'm beginning to understand why school art auctions command top dollar.  These little masterpieces are priceless, and represent so much more than what is immediately visible.

 

Hedgehog art 

 

Franny's first day of school, age 2

The artist

What you see below is Franny's "Frog art".  During the nine months she spent in her Frog class, she was very enthusiastic about her art.  Although there are exceptions, the approach to art at Franny's preschool is "self expression".  There are few guidelines--they aren't instructed to create anything based on a theme.  Rather, they focus on using alternate methods to facilitate their art--they paint with crumpled paper, rollers, marbles; they pick their paint or other medium and create according to their mood and imagination.  At this age, the result is a lot of pictures that appear to lack any kind of focus.  But, in reality, they all mean something to Franny and she can tell you exactly what they represent and she is very proud of all of them.

A good friend introduced me to this great idea to control the art overload that inevitably occurs during those early school years:  put them all a wall and take a picture of your child with their art, as well as additional pictures of individual paintings.  Then, sadly dispose of the masterpieces, saving only a few for her Frog scrapbook.  And, while in theory, this is perfect for my constant need for organization and minimization of unnecessary hoarding, it has proven difficult to completely follow through on.   While in my mind I think a picture of dried apples glued to blue construction paper is as good as the original (and who knows when I'd ever look at it again, anyway) I still find it hard to part with.  Her current collection stands about a foot high.  Maybe once it reaches 18 inches I'll finally finish the task.

Sweet girl

In the last six months, Franny has definitely become quite the little girl.  She is still very adventurous and rough-and-tumble, and she still wants to learn how to play soccer and loves sports, but now, there has emerged an overwhelmingly strong presence of pink, princesses, ballet, and all things attributed to little girls.  All in all, however, I can't say she has changed all that much.  At heart, she is still unquestionably the same sweet Franny, as I hope she always will be!

Finally!

After nearly two weeks, although we acuumulated over a foot of snow, Franny still couldn't build a snowman, as the snow wouldn't stick together. It took until the snow started to melt before she would finally be able to build one. And, as soon as the temperature rose, but before the snow was too wet, Franny and her daddy quickly constructed a great snowman, which had the absolute sweetest face, complete with a mandarin orange nose and black lego eyes. Between nap times and nightfall, the window of opportunity was very small, but the two worked (and played) until it was nearly dark to build him. Unfortunately for Franny, he wouldn't take her flying, as the snowman did in her book The Snowman, but it was very fun for her, anyway. And poor Cole--he slept through the whole event!