Madeleine the Sneak, Julia the Writer

When I got to Madeleine's preschool to pick her up after Lunch Bunch today, she was still in the midst of eating, so I packed up the remainder of her grapes so she could finish up at home.  She hung her head sadly as we left, too full of grief to say good-bye to her teachers, and lamented as we drove home, "Mommy!  I don't WANT to go to our house!  I just want to stay at SCHOOL!"

Luckily, she got over her sorrow shortly after we arrived home, and was even willing to sit at the dining room table to finish her grapes.  I should have known something was up when she announced to me, "Mommy?  I want to pretend my grapes are my DINNER."

In retrospect, I am a true dunce.  This is Madeleine we're talking about.  I okayed her dinner idea without thinking it through.  Of COURSE pretending the grapes were her dinner gave her license to help herself to an Oreo - her "dessert" - afterwards.  Without checking with me, she went and gobbled up a cookie as soon as she had downed her grapes. 

I walked into the dining room to find an empty Oreo wrapper on the table.  Last night, there had been one Oreo left inside.

"Madeleine!" I exclaimed.  "Did you eat an Oreo?"
"Uh-huh!" she responded with glee, smiling at me winningly.  "I was pretending my grapes were my DINNER, and I was pretending my Oreo was my DESSERT!"

It doesn't count as "pretend" if you ACTUALLY EAT the real cookie, though, honey.  At least she fessed up when asked.  If she hadn't, I still would have known she was lying by the tell-tale chocolate marks around her mouth:

I think she felt she was making up for lost time, as last night she opted to spend dinner time playing under the table rather than eating anything.  Even though she had ample opportunity to consume her dinner, she remained uninterested; that is, until we were up in her bed and I was snuggling her after singing her lullaby.  I think it suddenly dawned on her that she had not only missed dinner, but also dessert, and she burst into tears over this fact.  "I want my DINNEEEEER!" she wailed, sobbing on my chest, where she ultimately conked out mid-whimper.  I guess she figured eating the Oreo was her - pun intended - just desserts today.

Unlike her sister, Julia was an excellent eater last night, and earned herself dessert as well as some fresh-baked pumpkin bread.  She ought to have been hungry, after what sounded like a busy day at school.  She happily chattered away to me on the walk home from school about all she had done that day.  (At least I have one child who tells me more than "I like to drink juice" and "I like to play with nothing" in regards to school.)  One of the things Julia was most excited about after school was the fact that the kindergarten class was asked to draw a picture of something they had done over the weekend.  Since our big weekend activity was visiting the Eastern States Exposition ("The Big E") in Springfield, Julia was thrilled to share this with the class.

JULIA: So, Mama, I drew a picture of me standing by the CATERPILLAR roller coaster.
ME: Oh, that was a great idea!
JULIA: (barely able to contain her excitement) And guess what Mama??  We got to SOUND OUT the words.  The teacher said EVEN IF WE DIDN'T KNOW how to write a word, we should try to SOUND IT OUT.
ME: That's great!  And what words did you write?
JULIA: Well, I tried to write ROLLER COASTER, but it was kind of a hard word for me to figure out how to spell.
ME: That is a hard word!  Did you write Big E too?
JULIA: Well, Mama, I didn't think any of the kids in my class really KNOW what the "Big E" is, since I didn't, like, see any kids from my school at the Big E when we were there, so I decided to just write ROLLER COASTER.
ME: And what letters did you write for roller coaster?
JULIA: Well, I think I wrote... "RLCR."
ME: Hey, that's pretty good!  You got the starting and ending letters.  The middle letters are the hard part, but soon you'll learn how to sound those out as well.

Julia had to leave her drawing at school, but I do have a photograph of our time at the Big E, so you can see some actual pictures of her on the caterpillar rlcr:

Wheeeee!