Ok so now you need to hear about Girl V

Girl V turned 3 on Jan. 20. She gets so many presents from her paternal grandparents that I have not given her any of the things I bought for Christmas OR Birthday lest she be totally spoiled.
She is very interested in words and letters and we are really hoping she will learn to read this year. She knows the words "up" and "go," we are working on sounding out words. I KNOW that if she could read she would self-amuse a lot more by reading. That's why we are so hot on it.
She likes to look at her Bible story picture books. I got a little worried recently because she was talking about "the three men who went in the hot hot fire but didn't get burned because of God." I worried that she was getting confused about whether or not fire really burns you, since the drawing of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednago in the fire shows that they are just fine! I also had a hard time explaining why David gets to hit Goliath in the head with a rock, when we have a no-hitting rule in our house. Basically, it's like those word games in which you have to get your teammates to guess a concept without using key words that most people would use to explain that concept - since Girl V doesn't get ideas like "Chosen people" or "miracle."
We are thinking about pre-school for next year. Really we should have done it this year but she was not really reliably toilet trained and I would not have been willing to commit in Feb. of last year, which is when you have to sign up. There are 2 options, one is 5 days a week at the Montessori school, which seems like a lot, and of course costs more. The other is only 2 days a week, which might be better, although I am wary because it is a Protestant outfit, and I need that crap like I need a hole in the head. I have not gotten the info for the 2-day option. I just know she was so lonely this winter and was crying that she had no friends, and that made me feel sad.
This week she is excited about finding treasure. One of her babysitters made a treasure map with her and hunted for treasure in our house, and I dug out a book that was about finding treasure, and she thinks it is very exciting. She even made up a little song about it. The lyrics are "I love to find treasure all day! I love to find treasure all day!" and she jumps around singing it. She has no idea that treasure is valuable or what she would do with it once she got it, or why it would be hidden in the first place. But she likes the adventure of finding it.
In the 2 months since I last posted, we also got rid of her remaining nap in favor of her sleeping from about 7 pm to about 8 am (and also being completely cranky after about 5:30 pm). It is not perfect but it gives me some time in the evenings to unwind.

McCain: crazy as hell, statist, interventionist. Like George Bush, but with rabies. But you know, we've only got 300 million people in this country, so I'm sure he is the best possible choice for one of the two options we will have.

The only good thing that has come out of the campaigns is that I have been able to get in a word with my mother about abortion. She is pro-choice because, basically, everyone else in her area is, and my mother thinks any extremism must be wrong, because it is after all so extreme! She defends abortion based on rape and life of the mother cases, though I have explained to her that her view puts her in the position of restricting abortions to 1% of their current rate. She doesn't want to think about it, because she doesn't want to become an extremist or hold an unpopular view.
It is pretty distressing to me that my own mother holds this view. When I was about 13, she told me that if I got pregnant as a teenager, she would make me have an abortion. She was clearly quite proud of herself for having arrived at such a noble and clear-headed view of how such situations should be handled. I told her I didn't think I could go through with something like that. As was (and sometimes IS) typical, it did not occur to her that I might, you know, need to be consulted for my view in such a situation. Frankly, I think the conversation woke me up a little to the reality of sex (that it makes babies) that at that age I had not really thought much about. The idea of being pressured by my own mother to kill my child was pretty terrifying.
Anyway, I mentioned, offhand, that one of the things that is so upsetting about Obama is that he opposed the "Born Alive" bill that aimed to prevent babies surviving abortion from being suffocated or just exposed in the hallway of a hospital until they die. Mom just gasped and said "Oh my God!" So, maybe she will reflect on this a little more. Unfortunately, though, I don't think she will.