Finish line

Our friends Joe and Stephanie came over for dinner.  We coached Lyla beforehand on the importance of saying hello and other general pleasantries.  Instead of hello, she said, "This is my Madeline book.  She's a girl who..." and so on.  I'm pretty sure she saw Stephanie as a new best friend that Mommy and Daddy had brought home specifically for her. 

After Stephanie defeated Lyla at Candyland, Lyla informed her that in this game there are two winners, so Stephanie sat politely while Lyla continued to pick the colored cards and painstakingly advance her own piece to the finish line.

Then bedtime went smoothly because Lyla had a doll in her room that was sleeping, so we had to be very quiet in there and not turn on any lights.  I read her a book by the glow of her nightlight, and then I told her a made-up story about Rapunzel.

"And then she came down from her tower and--"

"No, she ran through the woods," she corrected me.

"Yes, she ran through the woods and found her friends."

"No."

"What was Rapunzel doing running through the woods?"

"A bad person was going to kill her."

What do they do at daycare, watch the news all day?

I continued: "So Rapunzel jumped in the lake and swam away to safety, and the bad person couldn't get her because he couldn't swim.  And then she went home and ate marshmallows.  Pink ones, red ones--"

"And purple ones!"  Phew.  Back to the world of being four years old.