FOUR!!!

Great googly mooglies folks: Athena is four! We have totally not killed her or let her die for four whole years. I'm proud of us.

This morning I'm getting ready for work and I hear thump thump thump thump thump thump thump of tiny feet running down the hall. Then rustle rustle rustle. Then she appears in the bathroom doorway holding her big birthday present with a giant grin saying, "Can I open my present now?" Responsible mom reserve melts in the face of cute. I say yes. Her dad leans in and says, "After we get dressed, right?" And I pause and say, "Yeah, yeah. After you get dressed."

Fairy wings with her Elsa dress because "Elsa can be a fairy too."

Okay, so that was awesome, and we still made it out of the house on time. Erik is teaching at Stanford again this quarter on Thursday nights. That means he picks her up and shuttles her to Tesla where I get a hand off at 6 p.m. And then everyone who remembers her from this a year and a half ago squees that she's grown so big. And everyone that's never seen her before gets distracted by this cute little human roaming their halls. Last week there was a party in the showroom where one of my colleagues had a little yellow minions electric car that came with a suspiciously Model S-esque nose cone, so he dressed it up with some Tesla badging on the back and voila! Tiny Model S he was running by remote. But she sees this and he says, "Want to try it?" So she climbs in, gets rolling, and is a little scared, so she wants to hold my hand while she drives. Still, insane cuteness (but no video because I had to hold her hand). Then she wants to go get her cereal from the kitchen and come back. Her confidence bolstered, but the car has gone home for the night. So then I asked Erik if I could by our child a car. Because suddenly I'm that parent.

Now that we've established that I have poor resistance in the face of cuteness, there's not a lot else to report. We had a lovely couple of evenings this month a CKP Manor. Our renters have let us know they're ready to move on and so we're getting my old house started toward going on the market. I'm apparently a master of picking good fruit trees because we picked a tangerine from Pixel's tree while we were there and it was the best one I've had in years. Athena's very favorite teacher was fired from Early Horizons, apparently for being too strict with some of the kids. We're hoping to find a good excuse to get her to watch Athena soon, but this is a really tough situation because school becomes extra hard if she ever realizes Miss Kym isn't ever coming back. Still, gotta do it. School continues to be otherwise good.

The three amigos

Clementine's birthday cupcakes

There's been a lot of rain this month. Thank goodness. But it led to a few days of joyful rain dances at school.

My dad came down for a few hours last weekend and brought a few presents for Athena, one  from his neighbor Gabby who always hits the mark on exactly the right gift for Athena. This time it was a block-based six-sided puzzle. She asks to do at least one puzzle each night before bed now. Another big hit was Carol's Cinderella doll. Cinderella has had many fine adventures with Tinkerbell, Periwinkle, Elsa, and Anna (her other similar dolls).

We went to lunch at Santana Row and then walked down to the Tesla showroom. Athena climbed into the driver's seat and another little girl climbed into the passenger seat. She said, "Bye! We're driving to Disneyland!"

That's all for now from Team Woodbury!