As most of you know, I am with my kids 2000+ miles from home and husband. Two doors down from us are Rachel and Hannah’s cousins, my sister’s children. We’re here until mid-July.

My girls are in heaven and I have become a teensy bit obsolete. The good part is I can just sit in a room and watch them play. It’s a beautiful thing. Once in a while things get a little dicey, however.

Rachel likes playing the victim. She is either a weepy child calling for her mama, a sick person in the hospital, or a sad, but obedient student. She’s got a great “sad” expression that works for all these parts. Her older girl cousins (10, 8, and 8, yes twins) play mother, doctor, or teacher.

Today, Rachel’s four year old cousin, seven months older than Rachel, (we’ll call him “J”) joined in and was having a great time playing with the girls. The plot line developed to the point where “J” and Rachel were at school, in separate classrooms. “J” was happily pretending that it was his first day of Kindergarden. The older girls were pretending to be teachers training Rachel to give a presentation to the kids in another classroom. Her presentation was to be on fish.

After about 10 mintues of preparing her, they bring Rachel into “J’s” classroom and start whispering to her, telling her what to say. She pretends to be reading off what is in reality a sewing card.

“Fish swim in the ocean.”

“Everyone knows that fish swim in the ocean.” says “J.”

The girls keep prompting Rachel. She says something like “Fish swim in schools.”

“I know that!!” he cries. Clearly frustrated.

The older girls, excited, start reciting lines that Rachel is supposed to be saying.

“I know that!! I know that already!!” he cries. “My Mommy told me that already!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

Did I tell you that the year of four is the year of “I know that already?”

Did I also tell you it’s hard to be the youngest?

I know just how he feels.

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My text no longer wants to wrap around my template image (above). I know it’s a blogger problem. They’ve reconfigured something. Does anyone know how I can fix it? I have no idea what to do. Apparently it is showing up fine on Firefox, but it’s not working on Safari.