drama and diversion

The reason, I'm convinced, that God gave me kids is to stretch me - in all directions every day and sometimes more frequent than that. To help me acquire more creative distractions and diversions. To unglue me from my principles concerning things like sugar, occasionally.

After she awoke at 6 a.m. stuffed up but chipper AND successfully read through her little reader book this morning with Mark and finished two bowls of Life (yep, that would be sugar cereal I concede but it was on sale), Priya plummeted into drama that a high school one-act coach would smile at: she didn't want to go to school because all they do all day is work on addition and spelling workbooks plus she didn't want to learn to read. Therefore, she didn't want to get dressed or get her hair done.

What would she rather do: play at home. Right. My prediction: if she stayed at home, along about 9 a.m. she would start pining for school and what Ryder and Abel were doing and she would have burned through about 10 or 12 pages of kindergarten workbooks laying around here. At 9:10 a.m., she be looking for a project to do.

I honestly did not realize this drama was even possible for a five-year old child. And while I admit she honestly comes by it solely from her maternal side, this kid has exhibited this attitude from the moment she entered the world seven days late nearly six years ago.

As we were driving to school, she said Miss Buntjer had asked all the kids in her class what they would do with a pot of gold if they found it, in light of St. Patrick's Day yesterday. Priya would give hers for toys and food for the kids in Haiti and Chile, she informed me. Abel would want a house full of toys and Ryder a house full of costumes. Htoo would give her to her family. And Moo Bleh, who is still working on his English, didn't have an immediate answer.

And when I dropped her off at school, she jumped out of the vehicle ready for the half day of school, her backpack stuffed to bulging with her snowpants and only one leg of her pants tucked in her black and orange rubber farm boots.

What did Mary Poppins say about a spoon full of sugar? Oh yes, it's amazing what an organic vitamin C sucker can do to improve the disposition at 8 in the morning.