Was It Something I Said?...

Mom has requested this entry.

After talking to Emily Grace about who knows what. Emily turned around and announced "Sometimes I just don't know what my dad is saying." This is from the child who would like "cream of the ice" or "berries of the straw" for ice cream and strawberries. Consider the source. By the way, Mom says she knows where Emily gets it from; but she won't tell me.

Love,
Dad

P.S. The boycott of the cat lasted fifteen minutes.

The lion roars.........

Emily Grace is not one of those kids that listens to my good advice, or suggestions or even pleas for sanity. I guess that makes her just like me. I was the kid with his head, hands or feet stuck in something that required the jaws of life to free. Thank God my dad was a doctor.

Emily thinks her cats are little people and she's constantly in their faces talking to them and being pushy. Cats being cats, Tigger took a swipe at Emily Grace and left her with two scratches across her face, including a good one on her eyelid.

After the tears and guilt from me Emily agreed to stay away from Tigger for four days until Tigger learned to be a better friend.

Look for a repeat of this story in five days.

Love,
Dad

Now I Know....

I was working in the back yard and Emily Grace came to the window and yelled out "If you need any help just call me." I called back "Thanks." Emily Grace responded "Dad! I was talking to Tigger." (our cat). The pecking order used to be mom, dad, sisters and then the cats. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Love,
Dad

What kind of bad dad am I?

As you can tell from the widening gap between posts that keeping up with Emily Grace is becoming more challenging, daily. I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way, although there are days... Emily has not only survived her first year in pre-school with me but now finds herself "promoted" to mom's room for this school year. The first thing Emily noticed in mom's room is that there are a lot more rules. (that's why mom is considered the gold standard) Emily has pointed this out to her mother to no avail. Emily's language has also been developing at a tremendous rate, primarily in the way that she uses language and puts thoughts and concepts together. She asked me the other day to "plug the toaster out" or un-plug the toaster. We had pork chops for dinner the other night and Emily got down out of her chair, walked around the table to me, cocked her head to one side and said "these pork chops are not working for me." I told her that dessert would not be working for her either if she didn't finish eating her dinner. The look of shock and dismay was worth the price of admission. Today Emily wanted to know if silly putty was waterproof. I told her that I wasn't sure but if she put it all in the water it might be ruined and I didn't want to hear any crying. I then asked her how she could figure out this problem. She told me that she would take a little tiny piece of silly putty and just test that and see if it was OK. I thought "Wow!" there are kids in fifth grade who couldn't figure that solution out on there own. Do you see why these blogs are getting farther and farther apart?.....

Love,
Dad

words of wisdom

Trying to remember all of the memorable words/phrases that come out of Emily's mouth is almost impossible. Here are just a few examples: "an-baid" for band aid; "bo-pa-jen" for ? she says it when she's excited or happy about something; and let's not forget "shoo-bee" for shoo. There's more where that came from but who can remember?

Love,
Dad

the truth hurts

I mentioned to Emily Grace that she would have to come with me to my guitar lesson tomorrow after school. She told me that my guitar lesson was boring. I explained that guitar was exciting and fun; she responded "not for me." Hard to remember that Emily's only three sometimes.

Love,
Dad

There she goes again...

I know it's a little late but Emily Grace actually started school in August. She is what's called a typical peer. A typical peer is a "typically developing" child who demonstrates good language/speaking skills, can follow directions, plays well with other children, shares, and doesn't join in when chaos is the order of the day. How did she get in here again? Did I mention that she's in my classroom? Mom and I both teach preschoolers with disabilities and after much discussion I drew the short straw and Emily joined my class. She's great for the children, but she's going to make my hair fall out. We were talking about what we would like to learn in school. Emily's answer? "Drive a car."

Love,
Dad