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Annie and Johnny have been working on certain behaviors. For Annie, it's solving her own problems (attempt to minimize the whining and demanding), for Johnny it's following directions (attempt to minimize the tazmanian devil with no ears). They've filled out their "reward boards" (thanks to my sis for the idea). At Target, I let them each pick out a toy from the $1.99 bin. The poor things don't know what a cheapskate their mom is, because they got so excited about it they could hardly choose. But after some very tough decisions, Johnny selected the parachute guy, whose main purpose is to be thrown from various heights. $1.99 doesn't get you a parachute with a very high threadcount. If you wanted to watch the parachute guy make his jumps, you'd have to look really fast, because the air whipped through that parachute so fast that poor parachute guy had to endure many very rough landings. Nevertheless, my $1.99 bought Johnny an hour of fun.

Before I get into what Annie selected, I have to begin by saying that whenever I have brought Annie to the store with me and given her a vote in what I get for her, I can always count on her to choose the most hideous thing out there. Two years ago at the fabric store we were buying a patch to mend her jeans. Among the pink hearts, the rainbows, the purple butterflies, Annie picked out the brown deer. When selecting t-shirts this summer, the colors of choice were navy blue and brown. And at Target, among the rhythmic gymnastics ribbons, the light-up spinny thing, and the squishy balls, Annie picked out the "fossilized dino egg." The kit included a magnifying glass, chisel, and brush to unearth the plastic dino from the "dirt" encased in this egg. So while Johnny was busy hurling parachute man from the stairs, from the couch, and then just finally throwing parachute man up in the air to see what would happen if he hit the fan ("no, Mommy, I'm not TRYING to hit the fan"), Annie chisled away at the dino egg. I made her put it away at bedtime last night, pulling her away from the green dust that she was so carefully brushing away from the plastic ankles of the stegosaurus. You might have thought that I was pulling away a nursing baby from her breast with the way she carried on. It was most definitely the first thing on her mind this morning. She came down the stairs, didn't even say good morning, and went straight over to her post and finished excavating the stegosaurus.

I am certain that this strange intense behavior only comes from her Dad's side, but I must say how glad I am that she marches to the beat of her own drum. I love that she hates the color pink, loves soccer and short hair, but also loves painted nails and makeup (she stole my red lipstick today from my purse during a wagon ride and I looked over to see a clown mouth pretending she didn't do a thing). She already has her own sense of what she likes and what she doesn't like. Pretty cool for a 6-year old.

Can't we all learn a lot from our kids?!