Well, Hope lost her top tooth the other day.  We had to hold her down, kicking and screaming, literally HOLD HER DOWN, while she tried to bite me, but I finally got it out.  It was all nasty and black and barely hanging on, but for some reason, this particular tooth, she wasn't willing to relinquish.  All her other teeth have come out easily with her meekly submitting to having them pulled.  And now she's got another one hanging that SHOULD have come out before Christmas, but I wasn't willing to fight her on it and now I'm praying her father can get it out so HE can be the bad guy. 

She got a microscope and a little cellphone for Christmas.  Yes, I know, as six year old has no business with a cellphone, but it's just one of those Firefly phones, which only dials a few numbers, like home and Daddy, that sort of thing.  She's out and about so much it's hard to tell whose house she's in so this way I can just call her to get her home.  Yes.  I know.  I'm rationalizing, but come on...I'm a gadget freak, so why can't she be one too?

She specifically asked for the microscope.  Specifically asked for one that "Is NOT a toy.  One that won't break when I use it the first time and one that actually works."  So I went to the Discovery Channel Store and bought one for her there.  It's pretty cool, comes with a piece (a teensy piece) of a 2000 year old mummy wrapping, so it fit in well with my love of Egypt, a love she claims to share.

It's been so long since I've blogged, I guess I've pretty much forgotten how.  There's so much I wish I could write about, but because of my Stalker, and the fact that I'm pretty sure he knows this website, I can't really write the things I'd like.  I do have another job now, one that I like very much more and one I feel much safer in.  The people are wonderful here and I think would give much more credence to my concerns than "Big Corporate" did.  It's really too bad, I miss my friends at my old job.  Basically my Stalker took everything which was important to me away from me.  My friends, my job, my privacy, blogging, my reputation and my self-respect.  Getting this job was near impossible and very touch and go due to my not being able to get a recommendation from my last employer.

Christmas was good this year, albeit a bit tight.  Being jobless didn't help and of course, Hope is without medical insurance at the moment and has been sick twice since I lost my previous job.  This after going a full year without getting sick once.  Her asthma kicked up in a big bad way when she had a little cold.  Scared the crap out of me when at 3:00 in the morning she was wheezing and unable to catch her breath.  Luckily, her inhaler helped, but by the time she got to the doctor the next day, her blood oxygen was down too low so they had to give her a breathing treatment and put her on steroids for a few days.  What fun that was!!

I got her her first pair of pearl earrings for Christmas (or rather, my mother did) and I think that was her favorite gift.  We had told her earlier that your first pearls are a big occasion and one to be celebrated.  I think she understood enough to be thrilled when she got hers.  Especially considering I told her I didn't get mine until I was 16.

We had family and friends over for Christmas Eve as usual, only this year was weird.  My Aunt's new husband of two years AND her ex-husband of thirty were both there.  I guess it wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be...but STILL!!  Hope got tons of games, we're so darned tired of playing the ones she's go, we decided to get some WE were interested in playing.  Monopoly and Scrabble Jr.

Hope didn't make Target, in fact she scored the lowest on the test of anyone in her class.  I feel terrible about being so disappointed.  I swore I'd never  care about her being the best or the brightest, as long as she is happy and tries her best.  But she is so unmotivated and doesn't seem to care one little bit if she is the best or the worst.  She is improving in her reading, but her spelling and her handwriting are abysmal.  I was completely freaked that she did so poorly on that test.  Her verbal skills are incredible, EVERYONE who meets her and talks to her tells us how smart she is for her age.  She carries on a conversation worthy of someone much older than she is, but that doesn't seem to translate scholastically.  I just don't get it.  And I equally don't get my reaction to her being considered "slow" by her teachers and everyone else.  I KNOW she's not, and I shouldn't let these tests affect me this way, but they do.  It's awful.  So we work with her and then sometimes our frustration shows through and I think that just makes it worse.  She wants so badly to please us and so her feelings get hurt and she reacts by apologizing for what we consider her lack.  I don't know how to handle it, and I don't know how to handle my feelings.  I want her in all the top classes and I want her to hang with and be one of the "smart kids."  If that doesn't happen, I don't know how and when I'll get over my intellectual snobbery.  Because that's what it is.  I've mentioned that here before (way a long time ago) but I'm not sexist or a bigot, but damn, when it comes to stupid people, I simply have no patience.  What if Hope becomes one of those people?  What will I do?

I won't stop loving her, of course, and since I know she's intelligent, what the tests say won't affect my feelings for her.  But I want everyone else to know it too.  Sheesh...what a bad mother I am.