Last night Veronica and I were playing together. Oh my, did I ever hear some interesting things.

Veronica is coloring and telling me about kids in her class. "Caleb's the boss," she said. "Oh, Caleb's the boss?" I asked. "Yeah, he's the boss, and then I'M the boss of Caleb." He he he....

Then we're playing dolls on the kitchen floor (the "dolls" being two Littlest Pet Workshop animals and the Rita "Flushed Away" figure from McDonald's) and she tells me that she smacks Luke in the belly. "Veronica," I say sternly, "you shouldn't do that. It's very mean." She counters with "No, Luke laughs. You're wrong, Mommy! He thinks it's funny!" Still have to talk to the teachers about that one, as I don't want her to be a bully nor for this kid to get hurt. She's getting to a point where she plays with the boys in her class more than the girls, though, so I suppose a little roughhousing is to be expected.

The best, though, was after her bath. We played dolls, I got a phone call, and once I was off she wanted to color. As I didn't really want to sit there while she colored, I told her I was going on the computer for a few minutes. I guess I was there too long; she said once "Mommy, come watch me color!" Then again. Then finally, "Mommy, I'm going to count to three and if you're not here after one, two, three, and watch me color, then I'm going in the kitchen and playing without you!"

So, so nice to get your own discipline thrown back at you, isn't it? I had to laugh, saved what I was doing, and instantly went over to watch her color. And as it turns out, it WAS interesting, as she makes up these weird little stories about what she's drawing and coloring. He he he...

That and the fact that she's actually eating again have both put a smile on my face. :-)

The other night Veronica was being quite silly while we were reading a Dora book before bedtime. When asked where something or someone was on the page, she would point to ANYTHING that was NOT what was requested. And grinned in an ornery fashion. Hence, I said "Veronica, you're so ornery!"

And she replied, "Yeah, I just don't know what they're gonna do with me."

I had a hard time finishing the story after that.

In the past month she has acquired two skills that are amazing me. First off, she can almost spell and write her name. She gets up to "VERO" and then gets the rest of the letters mixed up. "N", "C", and "A" are giving her problems still yet, but wow, she's not even 4 years old yet! And secondly, she can operate both a computer mouse and a track ball. She doesn't need me to help her with Microsoft Paint or any online Dora or Diego games, past actually popping up said programs for her.

She's getting her numbers down too, mostly by sound rather than sight. She can usually hold up the correct amount of fingers up to five, though, to drive the point home of exactly which number she's referring to. ;-) She can count verbally pretty well, but she gets ten and eleven mixed up sometimes. She can count to seven in Spanish even better.

She's not eating well, which is a point of concern for both me and Jason. We are working on it, but it's hard sometimes to get her to eat anything - even junk food at times.

She's recovering from strep throat, after a trip to the ER at 3 in the morning after she spiked a 102 degree temperature at Jason's apartment that just wouldn't go down. They did blood work and had to use a catheter too, when she failed to provide a urine sample ("I don't HAVE to pee!"), and that was traumatic for all involved. As she had no real other symptoms, though, the staff was puzzled - and worried - as to what exactly was causing her fever and lethargy. It's awful when your kid is sick. :-(

That's about it for now, but she always keeps us amused and happy, and is a continual joy, good moments and bad. :-)