Mommy and Emma

So, I think my daughter is an average 3 year old. She loves dolls, and she doesn't like to eat........unless it comes from a box with cute characters gracing the front, or it is a pop tart, particularily chocolate, or brown sugar and cinnamon. Now, you must understand, Emma would eat these two items all day long if I would let her....and often enough, she has worn me down to cereal at night. Now, she absolutely refuses to eat what I cook for dinner, declaring it "disgusting" before it even hits the table. I am trying to hold the hard line: when she is hungry, she will eat, and to make sure that she only has access to healthy things. I think though that it has gone too far.......here is a conversation that happened last night: I was upstairs stripping paint off of her bedroom walls (she has slept in the nursery long enough, so she declares) and she was playing with her barbie dolls. While she was brushing one of the dolls hair, the head popped off. Emma said that she could look into her dolls head and see her brain. I asked her if the brain was big or small. She said it was small. I immediately said, "well, she must not eat her vegetables at dinner time"......how quickly these innocent conversations turn into the power struggle issues! Oh, and no dolls were injured during this exchange, as Emma was able to get the doll's head back on, intact with the small, non-eating brain.

Summer is here!!

Today was the last day of school..........which, for my kids, is also the first day of summer. My Mother-in-law came down on Tuesday morning to see my youngest son "graduate" from Kindergarten. Her mother, who had lived with her for 22 years, passed away earlier this year, giving her much more freedom to spend her days as she chooses. We have thusly entered into a new relationship with Grandma Mac. She drove down on Tuesday, and will be going back home on Friday. The kids are excited, John and I actually went out to lunch (BY OURSELVES), and we may even get a dinner date out of it! What a great way to start summer!

Gavin won a Presidential Silver award for academic brilliance. One girl and one boy won it from each class. It is actually signed by President Bush........needless to say, he was VERY excited! Interestingly enough, I have been getting many congratulatory calls, which kind of makes me laugh a little, because I certainly didn't do anything! Gavin is just Gavin, a wonderful young man. Ian won the Academic Whiz award for his class. His teacher said that if anyone ever wanted to know the answer to anything, they would just ask Ian, and he would know. He also received his standardized test scores back this week.........his overall battery tests out at 7th grade, 7th month, with his language skills being Post High School. I'm still not exactly sure how an 8 year old can have post high school skills................I'm not sure if that says a lot about my son, or not so much about the average high schooler. Either way, he is doing very well and is looking forward to 3rd grade next year, but only after an amazing summer. He has already submitted his wish list for what he would like to do this summer.

I wish each of my friends a very happy summer and cheers to the power of suntan lotion!