"your E is too big!"

i just LOVE talking to my neighbor, jodi,
over the fence in the backyard.
i makes me feel so retro and cool.
despite all of the obvious glitches,
there were some really good things about
a woman's reality back in the first part of the 20th century.

jodi: sara is being weird. she better be getting her period.
me: WHAT?!?!?! (sara is 10) what's going on?
jodi: she is just being so mean to everyone. she has unrealistic expectations of the world in general.

(in the background, loud, angry, slam-y noises coming from the kitchen where sara is doing the dishes)

me: (thinking of band-aid-y solutions) i have some strawberries and whip cream.
jodi: that would be good. i will send her over. she could use the time with you. and i could use a break.

so sara and anna came over . . .


we scrapbooked . . .

and then i got THIS face:

sara: (thumbing through my heidi swapp alpha rub ons) you don't have a little e!
me: (inspecting the delinquent 'E') that's little.
sara: no! not little enough
me: (confused) but, it came from the same place as all of your other letters. and they are all lower-case.
sara: but it is too big! it is so much bigger than all the other letters in here!!!

oh, so that is what jodi meant by unrealistic expectations and standards for the world.

but what i love about 10 year olds is that they are still young enough to take some redirection of their volitile energy.
for instance, when sara was hovering and being mouthy while i made dessert, i simply said,
me: hey sara, why don't you go rearrange the pillows on my couch. (sure, it was lame, but give me a break - i am not a mom yet!)
sara: (thinking for a minute) OKAY!!!!!