Mary

Mary is seven, excited to turn 8 in July,and likes to throw tea parties. She is enjoying second grade and just this week is making a leprechaun trap. She has decided she's going to be a world-famous scientist when she grows up, that she will not change diapers: that will be Eli's job, because he's going to stay at home with the kids while she goes to work. She always tells me she wishes I worked and Dad stayed home because he's a lot funnier. I told her to take it up with her father--I'm ready as soon as he is.



She loves everything to do with dinosaurs, and her dream is to go to BYU to study paleontology. (We promised the kids our family vacation this summer will be a tour of dinosaur sites in Utah.) With Mom and Dad so heavily in the Social Sciences/Humanities, we need a scientist in the family. (I think Isaac will cover the Math.) She is playing violin in the school orchestra but doesn't like it enough to warrant carrying it around school two days a week. I've also tried teaching her piano, but she and I both do a lot better when she teaches herself from the books.



Mary has also developed a more willful and eclectic fashion sense than ever. She won't even admit to owning pants (she keeps throwing her jeans back in my room). I only have a say in what she wears when I fight for it, and I figure if she'll just let me comb her hair once a day then I've fought all the fight I want to fight. (Here she is jumping on the trampoline, hence the weird face. But would you look at all that hair!)