A big bucket of self-esteem

My daughter is learning to write bona fide English words and recently strung together her first sentence unassisted. Well, she had written phonetically-spelled phrases like “I lv u” in the past and had asked for help in spelling various words, but this was the first time I’d seen her write a fully-formed sentence with no help. What did she write, you ask?

“I like me.”

This short phrase is so telling of my daughter’s personality. She does like herself – quite a lot, actually. She also assumes that everyone else digs her in equal measure. I have no idea what it’s like to go through life with such high self-esteem. I step into the world every morning with the assumption that a) I look like shit, and b) everyone else agrees with my assessment. My daughter steps into the world every morning with the thought that a) it’s too frickin’ early (she’s not a morning person), b) she’s adorable, and c) everyone agrees with her assessment.

She’s not just confident, though. She’s also highly social (I suppose the two go hand-in-hand). She told me the other day that she “just likes meeting new people.” A waves to strangers everywhere we go, chatting them up if they get within range. Therefore, it’s not too surprising that her teacher sent home this note the other day:



Mrs L wrote it at the top of a blank worksheet, which was supposed to be filled out by my daughter during class. The worksheet was blank because apparently my little buttercup has better things to do than to learn about the letter T.

I told A that she missed her chance to learn about the letter T, and now she'll have to go through the rest of her life not understanding its correct usage. She likes herself, though, and that's the important thing.