My daughter is a master manipulator, drama queen and I can not stop cracking up...

So it was my daughter's sixth birthday.  She woke up like a little princess and came down the stairs like a fairy floating on air.  Weightless.  A thing of beauty.  A wonder to behold.

And then she started talking.

"Mom, it's my Birthday!!!  That means I get to stay home from school?  Right?"  She's all super excited and is  wearing her party dress.  Her hands running down the sides of it so the layers underneath crush and poof back out.  

"Um, yeah, about school.  Hon, you still have to go to school today.  Mrs. Abram's has all sorts of great stuff planned for your birthday.  You can't let her down, can you?  It's going to be great and I'll stop by at lunch to eat with you."

"Mom, my throat hurts...."

"What?!?"

"Mom, it really hurts.  I can't swallow.  It hurts really bad."  And just like that she starts sobbing and drooling and acting like she's dying.

Anyway, the rest of the morning routine went out the window and, don't call social services here, but I hauled my little drama queen out of the house, into the car and stuffed her in her classroom all the while complaining she was going to die.

I'm not home from school for more than thirty minutes before I get a call from the school nurse telling me Lizzy's in her office complaining of a sore throat.  I told her what happened this morning and we both got a good laugh and she turfed her back to the classroom.

Then I go into see her at lunch.  Her teacher sees me and tells me how she thinks Lizzy's really sick and should go home.  She even tried to get her to color and she just started sobbing and exclaiming how her thorat was killing.

And I'm all like, "Really??  You think she's sick??"

And her teacher's all, "I think she may need to go home, she doesn't look good and she's just so upset.  Poor thing.  And on her birthday."

And I'm still all, "Really?  We're talking about Lizzy, right??  You're buying all of that, all the tears and boo-hoo-ing??  How bout I go eat with her and see what's going on?"

So, in good faith I went over and had lunch with Lizzy.  And here's what Lizzy had to say:

"Mom, it's so great!!  It's my Birthday and I told Mrs Abram I didn't want to color and I started to cry and I GOT TO MEET THE SCHOOL NURSE!!!!!  She's so neat!  And then I came back to the classroom and I didn't have to do any of my work when I started crying again.  I'm soooo hungry.  Can you open my ketchup?  Thanks so much for Wendy's for my Birthday!  I bet I won't have to do anything if I keep crying.  This is the best day ever!!!!"

She's saying all of this while stuffing in four chicken nuggets and a handful of fries in her mouth.  It reminded me of one of those contests where someone stuffs as many cigarettes in their mouth as they can.

"OK, lets back up here, honey.  Does your throat hurt?  At all???"

"Huh?  What??  No, I'm hungry.  Can I open my presents when I get home?"

And that is the true story of how my daughter played her teacher like a violin on the fifth day of school, on her Birthday.