The Feature Presentation (Part ONE)

Emily's new school friend:

One morning last week I found some stuff Leslie had forgotten, so I was running them by her school before I had to be at work. After I ran into her, I asked her where Emily was, she told me she was in the Cafeteria. As soon as she told me that, I said:

"Who's with her?"

"I think Kaitlyn."

That's it? You aren't in there with her, and that's okay with you?!?! I almost turned and raced through the halls to find her, but then I realized, she's at school, and that's what kids do at school. Funny how it never computed that Emily would just be hanging out by herself with other kids in the cafeteria before the school bell rang. [Sniff] She's growing up so fast.. [Sniff, sniff] Ahem, anyway..

As I walked down toward the cafeteria, I saw her through the door. I thought she saw me, because she started running at full speed toward the door. I started to reach out my arms for her like I always do, but then I quickly realized she was NOT running toward me, but rather another student that looked about the same age as her. I saw them hold hands, and head back into the cafeteria. I followed them in, and ended up right behind them as they neared the food line. Emily was holding/tugging her friend at this point, and turned around and looked at me. Now, when Emily has seen me out of nowhere, her routine (consistently) has been: drop everything she was doing, sprint at full speed toward me, grab me with a big hug, then let me hold her for a bit. This time, she turned and saw me, smiled, said hi, and then went back about her business. I now knew I was in the twilight zone.

So she and her friend approached the server, and Emily told her, "Erika (not her real name, but since I don't have this girl's permission... you know...) wants cereal, white milk, a spoon, and napkins please." The server responded, "Okay, do you know her last name yet?" Odd question - and by the way, this whole thing was a little odd.. Emily being miss bossy britches here? The girl can't even get her own food? "No, not yet." She loaded up the tray, and carried it for Erika over to a table. Never mind me, I had to follow along like a lost puppy. I asked her if I could sit next to her, and she told me sure, so I did. Then Emily went to work on opening the cereal container. I looked over at Erika, who was silent, and said, "I'm Emily's daddy." No response, but a smile. As soon as everything was set, the school bell rang. Erika didn't get one bite, but that didn't matter much to Emily, she snatched up all the food, threw it away, and off they went to class. I rushed to follow them, still pretty confused to the whole event. Just before Emily got to her classroom, she turned, told me "bye!" gave me a big hug and kiss, and off she went. I ran back into Leslie on the way out and told her what had happened, telling her how confused I was. She told me that Erika doesn't speak a word of English, and is new to the school. Emily had taken it upon herself to befriend this little girl, and help her out throughout the day.

That's my daughter I'm talking about right there, and it's not possible to be any more proud of her.

Games we play:

One of Emily's favorite games to play in the house has been (for quite some time) "Do you want to run to the pillow?" We should probably come up with a better title to the game, but, that's what it is. The game basically goes like this: I start walking toward her room, and she follows close behind, giggling uncontrollably. At some point I snap around, and start sprinting for our bedroom. Since I'm behind her at this point, she whips around and runs at full speed toward our bed as well, barely able to breathe as she laughs so hard. Once in our room, she runs over to my side of the bed and starts climbing, and I rush to Leslie's side and "climb" up as well. Then, the head that hits my pillow first, "wins." No matter who it is, it's always the other person's turn next, according to the amended rules by Emily. So, if she gets there, she immediately says, "YOU'RE TURN!" and If I get there, "MY TURN!" So we repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

Well, as much fun and hilarity that has ensued with that game in the past, Emily was apparently ready for a NEW game the other day, as she started explaining the rules to me spontaneously one afternoon. She took one of the kid seats we put in the chairs over and placed it on the living room floor, then said, "Daddy, start at this chair, run into your room, come back, and touch the chair." So off I went. When I got back, she yelled, "My turn!" and stood up on the little blue chair. I told her, "Emily, ["yeah?"] run into my closet ["yeah.."], touch a shoe [giggle, "yeah"], go to my bed ["yeah"] jump on it three times [laugh hard, "yeah.."] then come back to the chair.

She sped off in a blur, quickly followed by faint laughter in my closet, then giggling as she hopped on the bed, then back to the chair. We went back and forth with this for a while, until she said, "Okay daddy, now give me a HARD ONE!!" So I gave her lots of steps, many places to crawl, she had to count to ten in the middle, spin around a couple times here and there, and then back. As she sped off I could hear her repeat all the instructions back to herself as she went from room to room, and at one point she came back in and said, "Do I spin in the chair in the computer room 4 times, THEN crawl under the chair in the dining room, or dining room them computer room?" I replied, "Computer room, then dining room." And off she went, whizzing through the rest of the steps.

So anyway, that's our latest time filling game. I like the sitting part and instructing her better :)

Okay, that's all I've got for now. I still have the yellow park and the doctor stories, so stay tuned!