Chloe's story

Chloe wrote a story today. She wanted to write something that would
teach younger kids their colors, days of the week, and about creatures
that lived in the ocean. It went like this:

*The Special Little Tulip *

Written by Chloe Leff age 6 and Mommy age 36

Illustrated by Chloe Leff

There once was a tulip who lived on Flower Planet. It was the most
special flower in the world because it changed colors every day of the
week. All the 1,690,000 tulips lived on top of the planet because
meteorites could come and kill the flowers that were on the bottom. Each
year, the planet would be hit by one meteorite and the flower with the
weakest root would pop off and float into space. One day a meteorite hit
the left side of the planet where the special flower was planted and it
had the weakest roots. It popped off and floated through space and
landed on earth. It went down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where
it planted itself and began to change colors. On Sunday it turned violet
and a starfish floated by. On Monday, it turned vermilion and a turtle
came by slowly. On Tuesday, it turned chartreuse and a barracuda swam
by. On Wednesday, it turned magenta and a lemon shark chomped by. On
Thursday, it turned goldenrod and an octopus pushed by. On Friday, it
turned orange red and a clown fish came by and did an act. On Saturday,
it was all the colors and a cow fish named Buttercup stopped, swam a
little more forward, and hugged the flower. She loved the flower! All of
the creatures came by and yelled at Buttercup, "Why are you next to that
flower!" Buttercup shouted, "I love her!" *The End*

Paige going to sleep

Paige was having some difficulty going to sleep tonight. She kept
coming out of her room and we would redirect her back to her bed. Her
final time she emerged, she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and
she said, "I am scared because I don't have vaseline on my lips, I want
you to rock me, and if I was a mermaid I wouldn't love you anymore" It
made perfect sense...to her.

recent events

The other day Paige and I were in the car driving to pick up Chloe from
school. It had been a particularly trying day behavior wise, and Paige
was whining in the car about something. I told her that I was becoming
really frustrated with her behavior. She paused and then replied,
"Mommy, when you get frustrated, I think that is funny!"

Chloe was looking through some fact cards on the US Presidents. They
each had a sketch of the president with a rough bio. After she had put
them in chronological order, she turned to me and started this
interesting conversation:

Chloe: "Mommy, I want either Obama or Hillary Clinton to be our next
president, not John McCain."
Mommy: "Well Chloe, why don't you want McCain?"
C: "Because he is a white man and all of our presidents have been
white men."
M: "Well saying that you don't want McCain to be president because he
is a white man is just as wrong as saying you don't want someone to
be able to do something because they are black or a woman. We need
to choose our president based on their views and plans for the
country--not just because they are a specific color or a boy or girl."
C: "Mommy, I don't want to be white."
M: "What do you want to be?"
C: "I want to be black."
M: "Why do you want to be black?"
C: "So I can help the black people."
M: "What do black people need help with?"
C: "They need people to treat them fairly."
M: "You can help people treat everyone fairly no matter what color
you are."

At this comment, she seemed to think it was okay to be white again.

Chloe also had some amazing experiences this vacation. When picking up
trash in the forest with her Auntie Ingie just outside the place we were
staying, they looked up and saw a black bear cub about 10 feet away.
They had just read what to do if there is a bear encounter, so Chloe
raised her hands in the air to make herself seem taller and they began
to back away with Ingrid yelling, "I am not a bear!"

The next day, Chloe rode a bicycle 10 miles! Even more extraordinary
was that it was a mountain bike with hand breaks and she had never used
hand breaks before. She took a few tumbles but got right back on both
times--what a tuffie!