I won the prize

One of the laurels in our ward was in the PGHS Homecoming Queen Pageant so we went to watch.  It was a pageant.  As in you wear a formal and impossible-to-walk-in shoes and parade around the stage. 

It felt archaic and maybe a little sexist and it's possible Emma and I whispered a few comments to each other from time to time.

Later, when we were home, I told her that I was glad she was my daughter.  "Thank you for never being in a pageant."

"You're welcome," she said solemnly.

*****

We went to the school for Emma's senior CCR (career and college readiness--I think that's what it stands for but I could be wrong).  Emma did all the talking like she does and I'm an extraneous appendage because Emma has got it covered. 

Also she told the counselor that I said she can't go to Yale.  (It's true.  I told her it would be over my cold dead body.  If I try to be super dramatic I think it adds a certain flair.)  It was the first time anyone acknowledged I was in the room.  He gave me a cursory look and said, "Maybe you can go there for graduate school."

Hmph.  Send your own daughter across the country.  I'm trying to keep mine close.  I'm trying.

You really can't make Emma do anything.

*****

Emma gave me parenting advice the other day.

It seems like that's the sort of thing that would normally irritate me, parenting advice from my daughter.  It was actually really good advice though.

I told her thank you.

She said, "Well, you know, I have vast parenting experience.  I had a tamagotchi."

I pretty much won the lottery when I got Emma Jayne for a daughter.