EnvironmentallyFriendly

Opal is walking up our driveway, eating the remnants of a bag of kettle corn (which Paul bought and she shared with somebody else on Sunday -- there's a lot of eating in a bag of kettle corn). She is down to the bottom, carefully testing each kernel for edibility and throwing the duds on the ground. "Putting gummy bears on the ground," she informs me, "is actually not OK. But putting seeds on the ground is good, because it helps plants to grow and feeds the animals." I regard the kernels. "Honey, I don't think the seeds are going to grow after they've been cooked." "That's OK, the squirrels will eat them." That I can believe.

Her loose tooth has finally come out. She has it in a plastic bag. "Can I put it under my pillow?" she asked. "You know, we don't do the tooth fairy, but I'll give you a dollar." "An EXTRA dollar. But I still want to put it under my pillow. In the bag." I told her she could, but she forgot before she went to bed. On the way out of school she showed it to somebody else's dad. "And you didn't lose it!" he said admiringly, only to get TMI: "Oh, no, I pulled it out. There was a little bit of gum stuck to it, but whatever. It didn't bleed or anything." I must admit I've been encouraging her to pull it out, as matters were getting ridiculous; it was visibly taller than her other teeth and the tooth under it was showing.