Kids today blog.

Some child-rearing notes. Lilly brought home a certificate today from her school PTA, a “Certificate of Achievement,” “for your creativity and excellence in the National PTA Reflections Program, 2004-2005.” Without overloading on detail, I’ll say that the Reflections Program has students submit artwork on a particular theme for judging, with awards given at district, state and national levels. It’s voluntary, but Lilly entered something both this year and last.

I suspect that everyone got this kind of certificate, since self-esteem is probably dogma at the PTA, and no child’s certificate must be left behind. Lilly did a good job in kindergarten with Reflections, dictating sentences to me and then drawing nice color pictures to illustrate them, all of which then went in a notebook for display. In fact, her entry last year advanced to the district level.

This year, however, she phoned it in. We encouraged her to do more than a pencil drawing on a torn piece of spiral notebook paper, but we didn’t push her very much since, after all, this isn’t an especially important project. Nevertheless, she gets a certificate. I wouldn’t have given her one.

Next child. Had a conversation with Ann this evening. It involved a certain confection, and went like this:

Ann: “Want.”

Me: “No more.”

Ann: “More.”

Me: “No more.”

Ann: “Want more.”

Me: “No.”

Ann: “Plesse.”

Me: “No.”

Ann: “Plesse.”

After which, she gave up. But she’s young yet. Soon she’ll learn to get the best of me.