SS is published at seven.

Who knew our combined post secondary degrees would culminate in such an achievement for our daughter? SS obviously took the old adage publish or perish to heart. Our girl is no lame duck like her parents, oh no, she worked hard and reached her goal. OK, we can only keep a straight face for so long. SS's class (and perhaps every class at school) had each child write about their favorite story and make a drawing to be included in a hard bound anthology.  I signed the waiver and check half asleep a few months ago, and thought the book would show up in SS's backpack sometime in May. About two weeks ago SS's masterpiece arrived.

And to our horror, the writings were not (GASP!) alphabetized by the author's last name. Why in hell did we go out of our way to find a partner with a last name starting with the letter A other than to give our child an advantage in life? I know P was pretty stunned that Arroz Blanco was not the first featured story.  I was not surprised that a child with a last name starting with the letter S was the first featured. That is because SS's teacher has her daughter in her class. It still weirds me out, to have your kid in your class, and you are the only teacher. But L's writing had a fun aspect to it, since she wrote about how much she enjoyed when Mrs. S read the story in front of the class. Quit brown nosing L, your mom is stuck with you.

We need to ask who created the cover art.  I don't know about you, but we were dying to find out what is SS's favorite story.

And although we had to wait until page 17, there it was, our daughter's first published work. Who knows what SS will be into in a few years, let alone adolescence. But we are keeping this book in a safe place for when SS gets too big for her britches. But right now, her love of super heroes is unwavering.

We were surprised that SS drew Hulk, we have not seen her draw him often. She gave him the funniest arms, but heck the girl is only seven.  The best part was the absolute look of joy and pride on SS's face when she read to us.

And before anyone has an awww moment, we bring you a real moment from this afternoon.  P was making a ham sandwich for SS (Grandpa sent us a HUGE ham for our dinner yesterday), and she was blabbing away. SS doesn't just yap, she demands your attention, because everyone knows we hardly ever even look in that child's direction. Among her many observations about anything and everything, SS was becoming quite demanding with P. He looked at me and said "Maybe this Maui thing was not such a good idea. She has NOT SHUT UP since we got back." A few minutes later came and even better zinger about SS's demanding nature, "She is worse than you, I never thought that could be possible." My husband, such an incurable romantic. And rightfully said coming from a man who has no faults and is so freaking easy to please. Heh.