Stinky Cheese Man talks

Irreverent children's book author Jon Scieszka talks about his new preschool book series and his title as national reading ambassador, in my interview in today's Denver Post.

Results are in

My daughter won second place in her first-grade poster contest. The kids had to draw a picture of the school's upcoming Spring Fair. Armed with a box of crayons and white piece of paper, she drew a caterpillar, just like the tube-style toy the kids crawl through. Another classmate took first place. Her picture: the principal sitting in the hotseat at a dunking booth.

Diorama Drama

My daughter's homework last week was to make a diorama of a scene from an Amelia Bedelia book. The assignment: Choose an idiom from one of the books and make it look as fancy as you can in a shoebox.

Usually my husband is in charge of projects that require more than gluing two papers together, but I was all over this one. Anything for Amelia Bedelia!

My husband, however, had already started the project and instructed my first-grader to pick two dolls for the diorama. Great, I said, but how will the dolls stand up? "I'll use wire," he said. Ah. This is one of those cases when something sounds easier than it is.

Mommy to the rescue. We printed out pictures of Amelia Bedelia and chickens. The scene refers to when the lady tells Amelia to give the chickens scraps. In true Amelia Bedelia fashion, she gives them scraps of fabric. This cracks my daughter up to no end. Anyway, we glued the paper cut-outs of Amelia and the chickens to the shoe box, making stands for them so they're three dimensional. We then glued scraps of ribbon and fabric to the bottom of the box and added one to Amelia's hand, so the fabric is in mid-toss. I must say, it looked pretty good. Imagine my dismay then, when I asked how it went over at school. She said, "Jessica's is amazing." She then explained how colorful and ornate her classmate's diorama is.

It's okay. I'm just practicing for a diorama of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

Friends and Foes

Do you remember who your first best-friend was? My friend Erica became my best buddy in fourth grade and now, decades later, is still my closest gal pal. Of all the kids from school who I talked to, played with and went to the mall with, she’s the sole person I keep in touch with.

Now that my daughter is 6, I can see her navigating the waves of the friendship pool. My May children's books column, appearing on the mommasaid.net website, talks about friendship and highlights books that reveal the delights and bumps of friendship in fun-yet-true ways.

Flipping over flip-flops

Does your child wear flip-flops to school? My daughter really wants to, but I just can’t see her running around the playground in them.

It’s scary enough thinking of her swinging from the monkey bars without me spotting her, let alone thinking of her playing tag in what amounts to a piece of rubber with a stretch of fabric around the toes.

So I had to tell my daughter her all-time least favorite word — “no.”

“Can I wear them on the last day of school?” she asked.

I relented. How could I say no? That day, though, I’m sure I’ll be checking the weather forecast, secretly hoping for rain — and indoor recess.

Update/Take Your Daughter To Work

After a day of going into town, seeing where her father works and learning about his job, I figured my daughter might have some comments. So I asked her: What was the best part of Take Your Daughter to Work Day?

Her: “The donuts.”

Almost makes me pine for my own 9 to 5 days.

9 to 5 Daughters

My daughter just waved to me from the car, yelling out the window, “We’re going to work.”

It’s Take Your Daughter to Work Day and my husband is taking our 6-year-old into the city. The girl, dressed in a fancy orange dress and purple bow in her hair, packed up an Amelia Bedelia book so she can read on the train like the other commuters. I also packed her the half a bagel that she didn’t have time to finish.

I would have taken her to my work, but that would have meant taking her into the dining room/computer room and she already does that every morning and every afternoon. Plus, somehow, going downtown by train, going to a staff meeting and out to lunch sound more adventurous than watching Mommy stare at her computer.

For me, I’m all out of sorts. I’m programmed to race to pack a lunchbox, scramble to find homework and rush to the bus stop, all in a period of 40 way-too-quickly-passing minutes. Now I have a quiet house, I’m still in my PJs, and my body is in slow motion. So while my husband and daughter are going to work, my mom-job has been suspended for a day. That's okay. I'm working on initiating a new holiday — "Take Your Mom To School Day," so my daughter can be in charge of getting me somewhere on time. Plus, Then I'll get to go to art class, music class and recess.