Chloe drew this picture of dragons the other day. No doubt inspired by her successful go at slaying the dragon during the MagiQuest game at Great Wolf Lodge, she spent a good amount of time creating this tableau of a family of fire-breathing, flying dragons.

Her drawing skills have improved magically over time – it’s pretty cool to see the evolution in her compositions. At the eye doctor today, she drew a family of pirates for the nurse to hang on one of the walls.

The family theme that permeates her artwork is definitely a good thing. They aren’t dysfunctional, psychotic families – just happy families of four. Whether dragons, pirates, bears or other creatures. When I see these images, I’m reassured. We must be doing something right.

Of course, these feelings of child-reading success are often undermined when one of the two little angels starts screaming at us for some perceived slight. At which point I start wondering, with increasing alarm, “what kind of monsters are we raising?”

But this usually doesn’t last too long, and then we’re all back to being lovey-dovey and happy until the next outburst.

On another note, I’m turning 40 in a few months. And every time I remember that I’m turning 40, I realize that Sophie will be starting college when I’m about 55. That’s crazy. When my mom was 55, I was already 31 years old – and pregnant with Chloe. Jeez.

Will my husband and I ever be able to retire? Probably not. Playing the lottery is looking more and more tempting every day.

As promised, here are a few photos from our trip to Great Wolf Lodge. The first is an image of Super Sophie – whose muscles rival those of Popeye’s as she lifts an inner tube over her head.

The second (taken by our nascent photographer, Chloe) gives you a good idea of the craziness of the slides. The blue one was everyone’s favorite, hands-down.

We arrived just at opening this morning, and for about two minutes, Sophie had the “beach” all to herself.

Chloe spent a good deal of time practicing for her future as Tarzan’s Jane.

Finally, there was also a fort. The fort provided hours of fun to kids who thought it a hoot to dump buckets of water on passersby down below. And there are a lot of buckets to dump.

Yes, the two girls are fighting over the “piano.” And, no it’s not that Chloe is demonstrating supergirl strength. For now, our piano is still the miniature keyboard with 30 or so keys. And both girls carry it around the house like books.

Sophie and Chloe were having a bit of a scuffle over use of the toy. It goes without saying that whenever Chloe sits down to practice, Sophie is suddenly interested in banging on the keys as well. This inevitably leads to screaming and crying.

Today, however, the screaming led to playing, when Chloe started to hold the keyboard out of Sophie’s reach. Sophie loved this new game, and came up with all sorts of ruses to grab the piano – jumping, a chair lift, stretching…you name it, she tried it. And instead of tears, there were lots of laughs.

Seeing as though I discussed Sophie’s fruit issues yesterday, I figured I’d continue along the same theme tonight and discuss her major issues with multi-vitamins.

I have a pharmacy of kids multi-vitamins in the house, none of which Sophie will eat. Dora, Disney princess, traditional circular prescription vitamins, etc. I also purchased vitamins at Whole Foods – “organic” vitamins. I should have known better. I was afraid they’d be inedible, and indeed, they were absolutely horrendous. I mean, really – kids’ vitamins that taste like fish oil? Needless to say, the bottle of solidified fish oil went immediately into the garbage.

The other bottles, however, reside on the window sill in the kitchen – and I look at them longingly everyday – “Maybe she’ll eat one today,” I hope against hope. And Sophie inevitably teases me. “I’ll have a princess vitmin (sic), Mom.” I obligingly behead one of the princesses (because of her age, she can only eat 1/2 of a vitamin per day) and present it to her on a platter (ok, not literally on a platter, but with a lot of love). She looks at it – she sometimes licks it – makes a funny face and announces, “No vitmin (sic), Mom.”

The only vitamins she’ll eat are what she calls the “baby vitmins (sic).” They are miniature fluoride tablets, and she likes them because they’re cute. I need to find out if multi-vitamins come in miniature versions, too. I will stop at nothing for my children, even if it means making the goddamn vitamins myself…