Eight to Life

Life with an eight-year-old girl means…

She learns important things at school, like how to illustrate a joke (A clean one! What were you thinking?) with four letters written on her fingers and a stick figure drawn on her palm.

She will pull her math workbook out of her backpack, then take her backpack to her desk and FREAK OUT because she can’t find her math workbook, causing her parent to try to hack the dysfunctional online math workbook site, finally give up to go to the bathroom, and see the math workbook sitting on the table.

An absolutely incredible, amazing, stupendous very good day involves being selected as one of the best jumpers in tennickling. I don’t know—don’t ask me!

When you tell her to go inside, she will walk right past the two-car garage with the door wide open and stand by the front door screaming, “I can’t—it’s locked!” over and over.

Silence means trouble, but not like it did with a two-year-old. Silence means that, in the middle of changing, showering, brushing her teeth, setting the table, or any number of things that you didn’t know took long enough to HAVE a middle of, one of those shiny floating beings has drifted in front of her eyes and bespelled her into Not. Doing. Anything. These spells last until interrupted. So... Silence=Nothing happening

When you tell her to stop talking to her brother for a minute so he can hear you, the parent, she’ll start whispering to him. When you tell her to stop that, she’ll start making faces and poking him. When you tell her to stop that, she’ll burst into tears. Obviously.

On the other hand, she gets my jokes, likes the same books I like, and has fun shopping with me. Yeah, I’ll keep her.