Gratuitous Llama-ette Posting

This is what happens when I razz one of my children (see below):

- I got home this evening and my six year old came running out as I fetched the mail. The first thing she told me was that she had played some sort of sweepstakes game on a cereal box to win a Jimmy Neutron playhouse and lost. (Sorry! Play again! was the result she had got.) She didn't mind at all, she said, because she already has a very nice playhouse and didn't want to be greedy about things. (Swack!)

- She also was telling me again about the plans she and one of her friends have to set up a lemonade stand in the neighborhood. The latest twist is that she plans to donate all the money she earns to charity "to help people who don't have anything to eat." (Swish-Swack!)

- By a nice coincidence, the book her new teacher is reading to her class is C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew. I say this because I read this book to her not a month ago. At bath time this evening, she was opining about what a spineless coward Uncle Andrew was for forcing someone else to try the magic rings instead of trying them himself. (Pow!)

- For story time, we currently are reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for the third time. This evening, the girl insisted on reading a passage to me herself. I am reasonably certain that she had been practicing, because she had not just the words but the inflection down to a tee. (Game, set and match.)

Friends, there are plenty of times when I want to strangle the child but I am just overwhelmed by all this.