Little Girl

We had our first Balancing Babies class Thursday last. When the coach asked Fiona her name, she said, "uh, mm, I Little Girl". Does she know her name, most likely, yes. She answers to it, she also answers to Fee-Boo, Fiona-boodle, and Gary's nickname for her, Little Girl. Gary laughed and laughed when I related this little story with him. Fiona had a blast at gymnastics class, she caught on pretty quickly, at the end of class she did not want to leave and made a point to do everything just one last time. She also placed herself in the 4-5 yr old class, just trotted over and sat down with them as if she'd been there all along--they were practicing somersaults with a "stick & finish". There was a bit of flailing when we left, after refusing to don her shoes, I had to resort to carrying her like a sack-o-potatoes so she wouldn't catch me in the face with a random arm or foot. Ah, the joys of TWO.

Today on the way back from the "turtle playground" she chose to trot alongside the jogger disintegrating dandelions, hanging from low branches on young landscape trees...the toes of her new sneakers yellow with pollen, bees barreling away from her toddleated feet. Proof that I must be doing a good job mommin', how else to explain the apparently well-adjusted, confident, gregarious Little Girl?

We got our first little taste of fall weather the last couple of days. That comforting feeling of summer slowed and fall edging in, The Turning. It's a taste in the air, something I can feel more than describe. At once exciting and cozy, reminder that time moves forward regardless of every thing. The maples out back of the new house have already begun to change. This time last year it was warmer, we think, Gary's betting on a bruiser of a winter coming. I am trying not to jump the gun with holiday treatments, clothing shopping, decorations, baking. It is just now early September, it's difficult to remember as I look forward to Halloween and the holidays so much.

We've settled in here as much as we can, until there are bookshelves and storage spaces to place things. I realized that everywhere we have lived so far had built in bookshelves or drawers, or both. So, many unessentials are still in buckets, waiting.