The Girl

 My daughter is a teenager now, but every Wednesday I'll be rerunning some of her greatest hits. I wish she could sleep this easily now.

Recalcitrant Fairy

My four-year-old often has trouble getting to sleep these days, and pads downstairs once or twice before finally succumbing. I told her about the Sleep Fairy, who sprinkles fairy dust on children's eyelids and makes them heavy.

This only carries so much weight, though -- the other night she came down annoyed, and slowly announced, "The Sleep Fairy has disappointed me."

 

Frogs

Tonight my daughter asked me to play for a while before I put her to bed, and she made up stories for us to act out. She had me play the part of the man who hated frogs, and shooed Mr. Frog away.

Then, she said, mosquitoes started to fly around and pester the man, who ran around trying to brush them all away. Then he remembered that frogs eat mosquitoes, apologized to Mr. Frog and invited him back.

The man was not bothered by mosquitoes anymore, and was never mean to Frog again, because he realized that we need frogs.

I wish more people understood what my four-year-old understands.

Knows which side her bread is buttered on

The other day my four-year-old asked me if she could have blueberry muffins tomorrow. Quickly passing the buck, I told her that her babysitter would be minding her, and it was between her and the babysitter.

"Yaaay!" she shouted. "I get blueberry muffins tomorrow!"