Me and My Sister Are Sad About Her Blister

School is starting to wind down for Ruby. Today she brought home her "Kid Writing" journals which consisted of a short little one, two or three sentence-entries the kids would write every couple of days. Each entry was accompanied by a picture. Ruby really progressed throughout the year; it's cool to see tangible improvement in terms of spelling and handwriting. Now she spells just about every word correctly whereas the beginning of the year, the words were sounded out very phonetically. She also writes much smaller than she did in the beginning of the year. (*Excuse me while I brag: during my parent-teacher conference a couple of months ago, her teacher told me she was the best reader in the class. I was so proud. Not surprised, just very proud.) She and I sat down after school and read through them today. Here are some of my favorites entries:

Oct. 28, 2008: Me and my sister are sad about her blister.
Ruby: Mom, why are you laughing? May had a blister.

Nov. 11, 2008: Cats purr and are lazy. They eat cat food.

Nov. 14, 2008: I drove my sister to America on the Mayflower.
Ruby: Get it? Because her name is MAY!

Dec. 15, 2008: At night, Rudolf came into my room. I was awake but May was asleep. Rudolf wanted to lick me.

Feb. ?, 2009: My Dad shaved off his mustache. (In the picture, she is crying.)

March 3, 2009: There are a "shotel" living under my bed. At night, he sneaked under my sheets and tickled my feet.
Me: Ruby, what's a shotel?
Ruby: I don't know. It was my story, so I just made something up.

March 5, 2009: The Klo that glowed followed me home. She was so cute. I gave her a boot and kept her as my pet!
Me: So what's a Klo?
Ruby: I told you! These are my stories and I just make stuff up!

April ?, 2009: If I see a person throwing a cigarette in the recycling can or on the ground, I will tell them to throw it in the trash can.
Ruby: Woops. I meant to write "if I see a person throwing a cigarette in the trash can, I will tell them to throw it in the recycling."
Me: Because if they're going to smoke around you, the least they can do is recycle, right?
Ruby: Right. I think smoking is gross.
Me: You're right. Smoking is gross.
Ruby: And bad for you.
Me:Very bad for you.
Ruby: But if someone smokes, that doesn't mean they're a bad person. They just didn't make a a good choice.
Me: Right. That's very wise of you.
Ruby: You told me that.
Me: Oh. Right.

April 29, 2009: The slimy red worm squirmed up the brown horse's leg. She squirmed up its back and down it's tail.
Me: Ew, that's kind of gross, Rubes.
Ruby: Why?
Me: It just sort of is.
Ruby: Yah, I know. But I really wanted to write a story about a worm and that's all I could think of.