It was a beautiful day for a lemonade stand, and about 18 months after her first lemonade stand, Chloe decided that she needed to break out the supplies again so that she could earn a fast buck in order to buy herself a present.
After a couple of hours in the lazy sun, Chloe had earned $24.50. Lots of generous folks stopped by, including a local business owner, who gave Chloe $5 for a cup of lemonade. I wondered if that was simply smart PR on his part, was he thinking that the next time we need our house painted we’d have him bid because of his kindly donation? She could barely conceal her glee when she saw the number on the bill. One teenage girl gave Chloe $1 and didn’t even buy anything – just wished her good luck. Not a bad gig, if you ask me.
If the weather holds up, we’ll be out there again a little later. She’s eager to break October 2007’s record of $39. I told her not count on it – we are in a recession after all.
Earlier this evening I asked Chloe if she like having a little sister. Her response was initially knee-jerk. “I like her sometimes.” But then she gave it further thought. “Actually, I like it most of the time. Because even when I’m bugging her I’m having fun.”
I interpret that as a mostly positive response. Indeed, tonight’s bedtime routine went relatively smoothly. The husband was working late and we three girls did addition and multiplication, sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” read a princess book and “Monsters vs. Aliens,” and had a jolly good time. There was minimal yelling and hitting. And the girls even wished each other good night – at my prompting – but they complied. That’s a big deal.
Chloe’s off tomorrow and her Papa is going to take her to work. She’s excited because she gets to watch movies all day. And play computer games.
The last few blog entries have been all about Chloe. It’s Sophie’s turn now.
Sophie is learning how to add numbers. She was watching Chloe do her math homework earlier – she was doing multiplication problems and Sophie heard me give her the equations.
“I want to do it, too!” she cried. So we tried. Every answer she gave was 18. No matter the numbers. Then we started showing her with our fingers. She did pretty well there. Until she reached the number 13. And then she would skip to 15 or sometimes 18 or even 19. But boy was she happy to be like her big sister.
Breaking news: Sophie’s going to be extremely disappointed tomorrow – her boyfriend, Adam, is not the American Idol. He lost to Kris, who seems to be a nice enough guy. But boorrring. We’ll see who has the hit record first. My bet is on Adam. And Sophie will be the first one to buy it (with my help, of course).
Nicholas lived in an ordinary house, on an ordinary street, in an ordinary city, which was in an ordinary state (Hawaii), that was in an ordinary country, which was on ordinary planet, and even his life was ordinary. But not for long. For he was about to become the most unordinary person you possibly meet. This whole story begins in February on an ordinary day. It was beautiful outside, and may I add very hot too. Everybody was either at a lake, beach or pool. Except for a boy named Nicholas, Nicholas Mound. He was a well-behaved boy. He was nine years old. And the only thing odd about him was he was born on a leap year. So you can see he probably had the most uncommon birthday somebody could ask for. And in fact today was his birthday.
For his birthday, his dad was taking him fishing. And that’s when the strangest thing of all happened while they were out fishing they caught an octopus. An actual octopus! Nicholas and his dad were amazed. Nicholas touched the octopus and the transformation began. He was turning into an octopus! His dad was too shocked to move, all he was able to do was stare and gape. In about another 30 seconds, Nicholas was an octopus! The only things that were the same about him was he still had hands and legs and feet.
Nicholas was a very smart kid for his age. He was able to figure out that he needed to find the creature most opposite an octopus. Because that would change him back to normal. Which he thought was a spider. Even though it also had 8 legs. And all he needed to do was touch it. He easily found a spider and touched it. And this time he turned into a…well you probably know what happened.
After a bit of a rough afternoon, with moodiness and cranky behavior making its imprint on an otherwise uneventful day, Chloe went from miserable to ecstatic in about five minutes flat after I allowed her to accompany her friend on a bike ride around the block by herself.
She didn’t believe me at first – that I would permit this fleeting moment of independence. But boy was she happy. She rode off before I could change my mind, and after a couple of hours of nastiness, her demeanor went through a complete metamorphosis.
It was exciting for her to be on her own – outside, out of our view, with her friend. There are lots of other milestones to come, but this one touched me – she was so proud of herself. And even though the adventure lasted all of ten minutes, it was priceless.
It’s official – Chloe received her prize today for winning honorable mention in the local bookstore contest. Chloe’s masterpiece is the one on the bottom right.
She already put her $10 gift card to use (and had to raid my wallet for a little extra money to cover the cost of the book she wanted) and walked home while reading her new novel. This had me a little worried because Chloe is not the most coordinated 8-year old I know. I had visions of her tripping and falling on her face, book splayed on the sidewalk. Luckily, she didn’t fall, but at one point she trailed the rest of us by at least 500 feet.
Next year Sophie will be eligible to participate as well. I have high hopes that she’ll win a prize too. I’m sure whatever she creates will involve the color pink and at least one princess.
Another milestone for Chloe – performing “Cool Strut” at her first music recital. Sophie joining her on the bench was not part of the plan. Surprisingly enough, Chloe kept her cool, not only when Sophie popped up just as was starting to play but when she improvised a few missed notes.
She’s hoping the local bookstore (the one that awarded her honorable mention in the recent bookmark contest) will publish her review in their next kids’ newsletter:
The Twits by Roald Dahl
You might want to know some facts from the book The Twits.So here they are.In The Twits both Twits hate each other so much, they pull pranks on each other.Like this one:For dinner, Mrs. Twit made spaghetti.When Mr. Twit gets his spaghetti he said they were a bit squishy.Mrs. Twit just says it’s a different brand.Guess what it really was?I’ll give you 10 seconds. 1-2-3-10-gotcha!If you’re about to say worms, that’s correct.And you know who did it?None other than Mrs. Twit!The Twits is a very funny book.And that’s all I can say.
The author is Roald Dahl.I’m sure you’ve probably heard of him.If you ever do read this book, I hope you enjoy it.
It was a beautiful day for a lemonade stand, and about 18 months after her first lemonade stand, Chloe decided that she needed to break out the supplies again so that she could earn a fast buck in order to buy herself a present. 
The last few blog entries have been all about Chloe. It’s Sophie’s turn now. 
By Chloe
After a bit of a rough afternoon, with moodiness and cranky behavior making its imprint on an otherwise uneventful day, Chloe went from miserable to ecstatic in about five minutes flat after I allowed her to accompany her friend on a bike ride around the block by herself. 
