Lately Emily has begun to question vociferously the way of things around home. She asked me the other night, "Dad, why are YOU the parent?? Why aren't I the parent?" She has also been asking Tara why we're the boss and when can she have a turn as the boss. Apparently she doesn't like the fact that we can tell her to clean her room, but she can't tell us to clean ours.

She also likes to bargain with Tara over how much of her food she has to eat before she is done. A typical dinner at our house goes something like this:

Emily: How many more bites do I have to eat, mom?

Tara: You need to eat five more bites, Em.

Emily: How bout I just eat two?

Tara: Nope, five.

Emily: Two!

Tara: Five

Emily: Well.. how bout just two?

Tara: How about seven?

Emily: ...no that's ok, I'll just eat five.

I think the best instance of this was when we were at our favorite Greek restaurant. Tara and I were having our usual, while Emily was having chicken nuggets and french fries (not their best, but she likes it). We ended up having our usual competitive bite-bargaining match where Emily had to eat a certain number of deep fried potatoes and processed chicken? bits before she could have her sugar-blasted rice pudding for dessert. We all won.. and yet we all lost.