Dare I say it?

...Lest I jinx her, but Margot has been making a concerted effort to stop sucking her thumb and she's actually having some success. Several nights this week she has gone to sleep without Babi in hand and thumb in mouth. This is purely of her own doing. She started burying Babi under a pile of stuffed animals on the bed and falling asleep without him.

Last night, though, there were a lot of tears after lights out and some sobbing saying "It's hard to stop sucking my thumb!"

I don't know if she's getting peer pressure at school (Babi never goes to school with her, so I don't know how the kids would know she sucks her thumb), or if she's determined to wear nail polish (I told her no nail polish until she can keep her hands out of her mouth), but something is spurring her to break the addiction.

Maybe it's the threat of swine flu?

Easter Recap 2009

Future Dreams

As told to me by Miss Brooke (M's teacher at school).

I don't understand why we ask kids "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Heck, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up! I consider career changes all the time. Perhaps it's a way to help children envision a future, or to identify differences among adults. Perhaps it's just amusing for adults to hear their responses. I don't know.

At any rate, Margot has wavered between wanting to be a ballerina, a doctor, a firefighter, and a ballerina/doctor (maybe she means sports medicine?). One thing she is adament about: she's not going to college. Any suggestion to the contrary brings her to tears. She says she wants to live with me and Brodie forever. (This fear of college resulted from her Aunt Teal moving away to attend college two years ago.)

For the past few weeks, Margot's class has been studying dirt and all things dirt-related (i.e., landscapes, rocks, worms, etc.). Yesterday, her class learned about different kinds of jobs related to soil: archaeologists, miners, landscapers, construction workers, geologists, and gemologists. Her teacher asked which kids would like to do which job when they grow up. There was heavy interest in gemology amongst the girls in her class, and construction amongst the boys.

Margot's response? "None. I want to be a pretty person on stage."

Entrepreneurial

Margot's imagination is constantly developing entrepreneurial ideas (that is definitely Brodie's disposition shining through).

For instance, a few months ago she had a brilliant idea for a 'towel-less' bathroom. Her idea was that she would step out of the shower/bath and a blow dryer would blast her with warm air, instantly drying her skin and eliminating the need for a towel.

I personally thought this would be a great idea for high-end hotels, and wondered if the energy needed to run the dryer would be better than the water wasted in laundering all those towels every day. Innovative AND green! (Brodie thought this idea already exists somewhere.)

This morning it is pouring out (April showers...). As we pulled out of our neighborhood on our way to preschool/work, Margot saw a girl waiting at her busstop. The girl had a raincoat on to stay dry, but Min noted her backpack was getting soaked.

"What if there could be some kind of umbrella holder on a backpack so it could stay dry?" asked Margot. "Or what if a backpack had hands so it could hold its own umbrella?"

I smiled at that.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." -- Albert Einstein