"You don't have to tell me because I already know."

Currently, this is one of Emery's most-used responses to any information being relayed to her. I think it usually tends to be in response to good news from someone smaller than she, as in Anna Kimball is exclaiming there will be ice cream for dessert or that we are going to the pool.

So maybe our little know-it-all really is ready to start kindergarten next week.

Emery certainly is into seeming more grown-up than she actually is. I sometimes catch her talking to herself in bed, making up words to sound smarter. You know, just adding "tion" to the end of any word and using her very best professional, motherly voice.

Yet, the lack of inhibition or self-awareness is still there and for this I am so very grateful. This means she will still blurt out to the elderly man up the street getting his mail, "I know how to swim but not all the way!" No introductions, no formalities. Just getting to the point. It's great.

In the past few weeks sometimes Emery has been so dear and such a delight to be around that my heart just cannot bear the thought of sending her to school for 35 hours a week so someone else can watch her be who she is. And then a friend reminded me, "The world needs her little light. Send her out!"

True. And I did need to be told that, even though I already knew.