An Open Letter to Squeaker's Teacher

Squeaker went to her first "Back to School" night. The Daddy person resisted pointing out to them that for the guests of honor, the "Back" part wasn't really correct. Along that vein, her heading to school has focused my thoughts on a few things we've taught her. Ok, a few things I have taught her, that might annoy her teacher....

Dear Mrs. Ladybug,

Squeaker spends a lot of time playing with adults. We have taught her a few things that we are concerned about. No not those sorts of things, but her sense of humor might cause a few problems. We play a game where we give round after round of wrong answers to easy questions, such as "What color is the sky? Green, cow, pink, etc." We have had lots of fun playing "wrong answer" this summer. Fortunately we have taught her to use a funny voice at the same time. You see Mr. Ladybug, how this might cause some problems in your classroom this fall.

Also, we have taught her the rudiments of sarcasm. We were eating dinner recently and asked Squeaker how she felt about a recent trip to visit her Grammie and Granddad. Her answer, fortunately in her 'wrong answer voice' was "It was no fun at all. We didn't do anything interesting at all. I did not play any fun games or go to the lake."

Mrs. Ladybug, please accept my apologies for these things in advance.

Sincerely,

The Daddy Person

No pancakes this morning. She wanted cereal instead. Humph. Maybe she can have cereal next Saturday too...

Portraits

For a long time Squeaker has taken her drawing very seriously. We must have sharp crayons, no frayed wrappers, and we like clean sheets of paper. Good thing the Daddy person generates lots of typos and recycled paper. For a while she has been drawing things that are starting to look like what she says she's drawing. In the last couple of weeks, it has no longer required squinting, turning, and imagination to see what she is drawing. I leave it to the reader to decide, but those people are looking like people.

I really didn't think my nose was that big. As promised, we are back on the Saturday schedule, complete with some peach pancakes this morning. Good luck to everyone working on back-to-school. Squeaker goes to meet her teacher on Thursday...

She Did What?

This post is a collection of stories from this week that all pretty much involve the Daddy person saying "She did what?". For example today at lunch time, I was asked by Aunt Brite if I noticed Elena. Elena was, as you see, on the table, in a cup, with a large pink bandage around her neck. Brite told me the gist of the story, but I wanted to get it from the source.

Daddy: What did you do to Elena?
Squeaker: I had to put a band aid on it.
D: Why did she have surgery?
S: I was getting giraffe and the turtle out of her tummy. I cut it open (with the toy scalpel from her doctor kit) and one, two, three, four... and cut them all out.
D: Why was Elena in the cup?
S: I wanted her to be in the cup because I wanted her to be the cup.
D: Ok sweetheart.

By this time she wasn't really focused on answering my questions, because Elena's twin, Stripe, needed medical attention. Fortunately the Daddy person had his camera close by...



Earlier in the week Squeaker and Brite were coloring. Squeaker asked Brite to take down a letter for her. This isn't the first time she's had Brite take dictation. Sometimes she 'writes' the letters herself (lots of lines on a page) but that's a different story. Here's the letter (remember this this Squeaker dictating to Brite.

Dear Squeaker,

Would you like
to go to the Maggie
Moos place where
they have ice cream
and smoothies?

Love,
Aunt Brite

Among the noticeable things here:

• Squeaker usually just calls her Brite now.
  
• Precursor to use of the Jedi Mind Trick.
  
• She remembered their only trip to that joint, and what they ordered.
  
• We, the editors find it to be a little creepy.
  

The next day the Daddy person got some unexpected time hanging out with Squeaker. We hung out upstairs and brought my phone to catch up on some emails. When she came downstairs, she sat with Brite and they had the following conversation.

Squeaker: Brite, you said Daddy would play with me upstairs.
Brite: Yes.
S: Daddy did not play with me. He played with his phone the whole time. So, I played with puzzles, I read books, I made a feast for Elena and Hopa, but Daddy did not play with me.
B: Grownups can't play with you all the time. It would be OK for you to ask Daddy to play with you if that happens again.

The next morning, the Daddy person asked Squeaker if she would like to go play in the play room, and with out missing a beat, she says "Would you play with me and not with your phone?"

We leave it up to the reader to decide how the morning went after that.

That's all we have to report. Have a good week, sorry for the late post. Next week we will return to Saturday morning posts. Really. I promise.

Story Time with Squeaker

If you ask Squeaker what she wants to be when she grows up (or just hang out with her for a little while) she will tell you that she wants to be a "dentist, list maker, doctor, line drawer, a chef, an astronaut, and a story writer." Its this last part of her plan that we are going to examine today. These stories can at times be serious and may not be suitable for small children.



Squeaker helped me make white peach pancakes yesterday. They might just be August's one redeeming feature. Starting week after next, we are going to return to a Saturday 'morning' posting schedule. Classes start soon, so the Daddy person might be focused on "eco - nom - ics" on Monday mornings.

Enjoy the week.

Squeaker's Been Busy

We have been on the road again this week. Boating, kayaking, golfing (she beat the Daddy person by 3 strokes on one hole) and cooking, but we are back home for a light August.

I have a video to post, but it hasn't been edited yet. Check back later in the week!