This is Chloe’s preferred pose lately. Between her obsession with perfecting a headstand, and the hair that covers her face (even when standing upright like a normal human being), it’s hard to capture her on camera these days.

The elusive Sophie has become a camera-junkie. The former Camera-junkie Chloe is now elusive Chloe. It’s like a seesaw.

Chloe is two half-days of school away from being able to announce that she’s going into second-grade. Pretty exciting. In looking at all the things she’s brought back from school over the last week, I’ve been able to appreciate what a terrific little artist she’s become. She showed me some great drawings, including a portrait of Anna Jarvis, the woman who started Mother’s Day. She’s also shared her journals, which are a hoot. They’ll be even funnier and more poignant when she’s an adult looking back on her childhood days.

In reading her stories and her essays, I realized that Chloe, while a sometimes intense and passionate (read: exasperating!) child, is also a very happy little girl, full of love. Her writing reflects optimism and fun – as it should be. But in the day-to-day child rearing that we face, it’s sometimes difficult for us to remember this. Happy messages, like those contained in the pages of her journals, are the perfect reminder that we’re doing at least a little something right.