Swim Bite

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Pippi is a recent swimmer.  At three years old, she is getting really good.  Today, she swam the entire length of the pool a few times, and wanted to show me her skills.
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She hopped in the pool, and started her trek.  About half way across, she started screaming.  It wasn’t a light scream — it was an all-out bloody murder scream.  She seemed to be swimming fine, so I couldn’t see what the problem was.  She got out hysterical, and I finally saw her pulling her bathing suit off of her body.  When we finally got down to the issue, poor Pippi’s bathing suit had captured a bug of some sort, and it had stung or bitten her while she was swimming.  She had a good little bump, and it was red all the way around.  She never got back in the pool to show off her skills, but if I know her - I know she will be back.

Innovative

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Navy’s chore this morning was the upstairs.  When I went up to see her progress, I got on her about fooling around.  I told her this was time to clean — and not play dress up.  She then told me that she wasn’t in costume…but that she was in her new “Easy Clean-up Cape”.  Apparently she just walked the whole upstairs, collected anything that was misplaced, put it on her long train, and then gathered it to put it all away.
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I saw how it worked, gave it two thumbs up, and watched her innovation make her cleaning fun.
I’m all for that, so I headed downstairs to regulate on the boys who weren’t so innovative.

Pencil Boxes

We had a day of Pencil Box stories today.  Dash complained that he still didn’t have one and really needed one (they were out when I got his supplies).  I was so excited he mentioned it, because just earlier today I had gotten him one.  I even made it look extra special.
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I told him that nobody would mistake his for theirs, and he just laughed.
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Because they were out of boxes originally, Scout and I found a triple-decker pencil box for him.  I was hesitant it would be allowed, and like I thought, his teachers told him he would have to get a smaller one.  Meanwhile, he came up with a different use for his box.
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My entrepreneur created a box of $2, $5 and $7 items to sell at school.
I knew this wouldn’t fly at school, but I let his entrepreneurial spirit soar.
He did make a few bucks, but the same day he made the cash, he was threatened to never return with it again.

Fashion Consultant

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Quite often I will get Pippi ready fro school, and she then goes and consults her fashion consultant.  Today, she was wondering if I did things right by putting the silver tennis shoes on instead of the pick.  Nonnie told her either would work, but the silver looked great.  Once Nonnie consulted, Pippi finally agreed to leave with me.  As we were walking out, she ran back to Nonnie and asked, “Nonnie, my mom put TWO bows in my hair. Do you even think this looks good?”  That little twirp has no confidence in me, but all the confidence in my mom!  I’ll admit, that my mom has about the best taste I have ever come across.  But doesn’t Pippi know that I have been an apprentice for 40 years?
(It might have something to do with my mom saying, “I can not believe that your mother put that on you!” on my off days.  Apparently I need to be ON 100% of the time!)