{Playing School}

I was running behind schedule this morning and suggested that Avery might like to sit at my writing desk to do her school work while I put on my makeup. She thought this was a lovely idea. So lovely, in fact, that she said, "I know! Let's play school!"

This was funny for two reasons:

1. We do school every day.
2. It usually makes her angry.

But I certainly wasn't going to say anything about that. She merrily plopped down with her sponge curls and a clipboard (clipboards are very fun to use when playing school) and whisked through two assignments with cheerful perfection.

It was shocking.

Her work completed, she demanded with a Shirley Temple grin, "Now dismiss me!"

I summoned my best schoolmarm voice and said, "Push in your chairs, boys and girls. Class dismissed!"

She obediently pushed in her chair and ran out of the room screaming. She paused in the doorway long enough to explain the sudden burst of emotion: "That's what they do."

If curlers and clipboards and Mama's desk and screaming are what it takes, then sign me up.

Class dismissed.