A plant, a pencil box, and an apprehensive smile...

... is all this little girl sported as she entered the first year of Lower Elementary last Fall.

She walked out of the classroom today, calm and confident, holding a folder full of works she wants to do over summer, and of course the plant, very much alive with 2 paper cranes for company. (Hard to kill a money plant, of course, but I've done it before.)

So much has happened developmentally with the recently-turned 7 yo this past year. Those intangible moments have been duly jotted down in little sticky notes in my mind; many others of course are stored in digital images to be pored over, sifted, reviewed, and relished over time.

I have no lofty expectations from her for summer, but apparently she does. Which is good. As it has been made evident to me over and over in the last 7 years: One can only take the horse to the water; one cannot make it drink.

I do hope that she beats her diffidence, her inaudible public voice, her dawdling, and her indecisiveness. That's a tall order. I am still working on some of these myself, but, I am a late-bloomer (a whole post book can be devoted to this late-blooming) so I really hope she can get a head-start on these...

After loitering about by the school yard as long as we could following early dismissal today, we decided to celebrate the start of summer vacation by making a Strawberry Pie. We had the last batch of strawberries that we picked last summer, frozen yet fresh.

While she is not as enthusiastic or intuitive about cooking as Oggie is turning out to be, the girl likes Pies. Much more than cakes. The only cookbook she has pored over is the Pie book we have - Better Homes & Gardens' All-Time Favorite Pies.

She measured and made the double-crust pie crust dough - which might explain why we ran short and the pie went nearly topless. I skipped adding any sugar for the filling, so it is just strawberries thickened with some cornstarch. It turned out delicious nonetheless, and a satisfying dessert for a Happy Summer Vacation dinner.

Many impromptu 'I Love you, Mama!' cards were made this year; many paper cranes got origami-ed; many cat's cradle figures created... so many beautiful things came about and I hope I don't take any of them for granted.