Yesterday afternoon, Coco walked into the room with a bowl of cheddarpuffs. She told us she had seen the bag on the counter, opened it up, popped one in her mouth and said, “cheddarpuff divine.”

Today Coco told me a baby we know is “smackin!’”

I asked for clarification: lip smacking good?

No. Smackin’ actually means really, really cute. She went on to tell me that Harry, her cousin, who we’ll be meeting in two days, is gonna be super smackin’.

Yesterday we went to an end-of-the-year celebration at the principal’s house. It was a fun party. At one point, Coco had to use the bathroom and needed me to go with her. Once we got the door closed I said, “I wish there were some sweets at this party.”

“You know what I wish?” Coco asked.

“What?”

“I wish the world was made of marshmellows.”

Earlier in the day, in the 5th grade, Coco was like a celebrity. The children are batty for her. Kids in other classes even knew who she was, mostly because I had passed on advice from her the night before as part of my speech at graduation. Graducation includes “yearbooks” and they hold an ice cream social so that students can sign one anothers books. Well, kid after kid asked Coco to sign!

In the end, I think she signed more books than I did.

Coco LOVES her bicycle. There’s a short steep hill off the bike path that’s she’s always been afraid of. I told her it would look smaller every time she passed it. She looked at it the other day and said, “that’s a baby hill!” So she decided it was time to go down. I had her start 20 yards down the path. As she approached the split, she slowed and looked,, then veered back onto the path at the last minute. She rode 20 yards down the path, slammed on her brakes, turned around and made another pass at it. Again, she veered back to the safety of the path at the last second. This time she sprinted a mile to the next cross street without looking back. The next day, Coco tried again and did it first time, no hesitation. And we immediately looped back and did it 3 more times. Now it’s only scary for me – she goes scary-fast, no brakes.

We took Coco to Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, CT two weekends ago. Apparently she was paying very good attention to the tour guide even though she was wandering all over trying to touch all sorts of antique items on display, causing me copious amounts of stress.

Here’s how I know she was taking it all in: a few days ago she announced, as Mark Twain had, “I’m not an American, I am THE American.”

Just now, as we are sitting at the kitchen table.

“I’m never drawing again. You aren’t the boss of me.”

Oh how I love my daughter! These days though she makes it pretty clear that I can’t say anything right. We have these maddening arguments during which Coco tells me again again that I either said something and then took it back or didn’t say it the right way.

Tonight: perfect example. She asked me to come up to her room in five minutes. I said I would. I went up, laid down and kissed her goodnight. As I walked toward the door she said “you said you would stay five minutes!” When I explained I didn’t, she insisted I did. I told her I hadn’t she said I had.

And around and around we go.

Tonight while Coco was in the bath I asked again to look closely at two of her bruises.

“Stop being scared about my cuts,” she said in a flat, dismissive tone that seemed waaaay beyond her years.