Anya

Wow- Anya's 5th birthday is rapidly approaching....how on EARTH did that happen????? She's doing well at school (at least as far as we know)....no more notes from the teacher about hitting boys, etc and her schoolwork seems good. The only issue she's having now is when she plays with the other girls. She never seems really upset and talks about most of the kids in her class happily, but there are 2 girls who border on bullying her around. They aren't MEAN, but because she's smaller than they are, they won't ever let her play mommy when they play house. She has to be the little sister or baby and she doesn't like that. I feel so bad for her, even though it's not enough to make her cry- she just complains about it each day, but I don't know how to solve it. George and I both tell her to just stand up for herself and tell those girls that she'll be the mommy today or to have more than one mommy, but that doesn't happen. Oh, the joys of parenthood!

Anya is definitely becoming more fun to hang out with (except when she's reverting to her toddler tantrums, that is). She LOVES doing projects, where she draws and cuts out pieces of paper and glues them together. She really is quite the artist and LOVES doing it.

She's also our "hostess with the mostest" lately. We rarely have guests, so the fact that we had a family visit on Sunday and my friend visit yesterday was exciting for her. At first, she was disappointed when the boys only wanted to play with Baz's huge cars collection. She asked me why nobody was playing with her, so she and I had a little "girls'" party with Lorelei. When the kids mommy joined us after she finished work, Anya immediately invited her to play Mary Poppins! And when my friend Dawn showed up, she was directed to Anya's retaurant, followed by Anya's drawing game! She definitely knows how to entertain mommies!