(Top picture is of a cow "full of milk" and the bottom two are the mummy redback spider and her baby below)
and I'm measuring them by just how fast it seems Ella is changing. 12 months ago school wasn't even in my head and now I'm realising just how quickly this year is going and how much I'll miss her when she's at school. It's wonderful for her, exciting, a new chapter, but as with all parents facing sending their first children off to school, it's tinged with fear and sorrow too.
I feel she's so much more of a girl these days, she is learning more from sources external to the family than I'd imagined she would - it's not a bad thing at all, just a surprise to me. She now knows her alphabet not just in terms of rote, but in terms of recognition as well and can spell out words she sees. Her drawing is also a big measure. I thought we'd stay in the childlike drawings she'd always done and yet really only in the last two weeks, drawings are becoming more identifiable and "realistic", for a child at least. I have framed a few of her early ones, but I'm now having to secret away her best ones for more framing. How do you choose though? I have tried to keep the most special of pieces, but gosh, she's prolific and adding in kinder and all the lovely works they bring home from there (including decorated cereal boxes which start to take up a lot of space), but it's getting crowded in our already storage challenged house. Anyone have any clever ideas for keeping their childrens work safe? Maybe an art folio?
(Ella's on the left, the cute one, Leila's the baby above her and I'm the crazy looking on on a skateboard to the right!) 
(This is an angry guy from the Australian Biggest Loser (I know, I know)
(This is my favourite, my gorgeous Ella, a self portrait. Why is it this completely naive pictures are so appealing?)
3 comments:
I just saw your comment over at Big and Little. It's funny, I've been lamenting the end of summer. But I am trying to think of the positives.
My daughter is at pre-school too and I am also being inundated with the cereal box sculptures.
Such cute drawings! I can't wait for my little girl to start drawing like that. It won't be long, I'm sure!
The art folio is a great idea! I've framed a few of O's masterpieces too, but we had a huge pile of paintings, drawings etc hanging around for ages waiting for me to do something with them. In the end the pile was getting too large, and too dusty so I saved a few that would fit in O's memory box and had to recycle the rest - some were so large I just had nowhere to store them. An art folio would have been perfect, I'm going to invest in one.
I got a great idea from nursery too this week. O has started making up amazing stories, really magical hearing her imagination at work. Nursery suggested getting a special notebook for her, and recording them in there, exactly the way she has told them, then getting her to illustrate them. Something that will grow as she does, and what a wonderful thing to keep.
Why does childhood have to race by so? Been thinking about this a lot as we are about to start potty training. My baby is growing up!
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