Max the Needham Bear

This is a very exciting weekend for Julia, because we have Max the Needham Bear! 

And who is Max the Needham Bear?  Well, he's the stuffed animal resident of the first grade classroom, and each weekend, he goes home with a different student and gets taken along everywhere the student goes.  On Monday that student brings a "Max Journal" to school, with photographs of Max in various places, and a description of the adventures Max went on. 

Good thing Julia got Max on a weekend during which we were doing NOTHING exciting.  So we had to get creative.  Max got to go to swim lessons at the Y with Julia.  Not super amazing, I know, but we dressed him up in a baby doll bikini to add some extra fun to the whole event:

The bathing suit thing was my idea.  Julia wasn't into it.  "Mom!  But  I don't think you're SUPPOSED to take his CLOTHES off!  But MOM!  I don't know if I'm ALLOWED to bring him into the POOL!"

I tried explaining to Julia that Max was not actually going to go into water.  But she was freaking out over what imaginary rules we were breaking nonetheless.

Max also got to go to the Potluck Supper at Madeleine's preschool.  Oh, boy!  Fun times! 

Even though he was back in his regular clothes, Julia was still apprehensive about carrying Max around the preschool. 

VARIOUS KIDS: Hey, what's that teddy bear?
ME: This is Max the Needham Bear!  Every kid in Julia's class gets a chance to have Max for the weekend, and you have to bring Max wherever you go and take photos.
JULIA: Mom!  You're EMBARRASSING meeeee!

And here I thought she'd appreciate my explanation, rather than letting the other kids think she was a nearly 7-year-old girl who felt the need to cling to a teddy bear all night long.  Sheesh.

Max also got to spend the night in Julia's room, not in her bed, but in this smooth ride:

Max in the Barbie car

And speaking of Barbies:

Julia has gotten WAY into a pretend-play game with the Barbie dollhouse.  It's not actually a house.  It's more like a hotel.  But it's not REALLY a hotel, because it's a kind of place that parents can send their kids to live for however many years they want, and they learn all kinds of things. 

Julia explained it all to me: "It's like a place that girls can go when they're four.  And, like, if their mom and dad are sick, they can go HERE.  It has three dormatories: the sports dormatory, technology dormatory, and cafe dormatory.  Minnie, Edaline, Jasmine, Barbara, Ariel and Silver Mist are in the sports dormatory.  Wanna know who hangs out in the cafe?  Blair.  Only Blair.  Technology: Grace, Merliah, and Witcha."





Julia uses a British accent to "talk" all of these dolls.  Big surprise. 

This morning, things in the hotel/dormatory got REALLY heated.

JULIA:  Mom, they're fighting.  So, like, I'm pretending that Ariel only cares about BALLET, and it's December third, and every year she invites ALL these people on December third to the CLASS she teaches, and she's pretending that she's TWENTY-ONE, but she's really only SIXTEEN, and Edaline is getting annoyed because, well, first of all you kind of have to TELL people when you're going to invite lots of people over, because this room is only up to TEN people, and...it's probably going to be MORE than ten people, and also, Edaline thinks it's not really very NICE to pretend you're twenty-one if you're really only sixteen.

Yikes.  How does one even deal with such atrocious behavior?  I'm sure that no sixteen-year-olds besides Ariel have EVER pretended to be twenty-one.  Nope.  Unheard of.

With all of this Barbie fun, poor Max the Needham Bear has been kind of forgotten today, and lies neglected up in Julia's room.  But that's okay.  After all the wild and crazy adventures he's been on, between the YMCA pool and Madeleine's school, he probably needs the peace and quiet.