I signed up today as a participant in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I first heard of it last year when Carrie and Kisha were gearing up to write their novels, and I thought briefly about giving it a shot myself, but was ultimately daunted by thought of having to write, on average, about 1700 words a day for thirty days. Truth be told, I’m still daunted, but I can’t resist the challenge this year. I have no idea at the moment what kind of novel I’ll write, but I’ve already come up with a couple of good options for my pen name. That’s got to count for something.

Completely unrelated to writing, I’m afraid that the time has come to restrict Lydia’s buying power considerably. As it stands now, she has a generous monthly allowance, candy money every Saturday, and frequent–often expensive–surprises and treats, and I’ve come to realize that she appreciates very little of it.

She has lately developed an interest in collecting Pokémon cards, motivated by nothing more than “everybody else does it.” I had told her that, depending on what they cost, I might buy her a pack when we were in town today, but when we went to the toy store we discovered that one pack costs 40:- (just over $5 US)! That’s insane! I told her there was no way I was wasting my money on them and that she’d have to wait for her allowance if she wanted to buy some. She protested vehemently, as anyone who knows her might imagine, asserting among other things that “the boys will think it’s ridiculous that I collect My Scene dolls instead.” She wasn’t impressed with my response, which was a resounding “So what?!”

She was quite the sourpuss for the rest of the time we were in town, but as luck would have it Sandra came over soon after we got home and her mood turned right around. Nothing’s sillier than a couple of second-grade girls, and their silliness grows exponentially whenever they’re together. I was exhausted by their dinnertime antics by the time they left to spend the night at another friend’s house. They told me, “we’re going to giggle all night long.” I don’t doubt it for a minute.