Treasures.

For some reason, Willow loves hiding her treasures under her pillow. Its such a traditional spot, isn't it? I don't know where she got it from.
Most of the times its just small little things, like a rock, a feather, fabric, or a small drawing. For a while she had quite the collection of coins under there, so M got her a money tin.

She also likes storing things inside her hat or helmet- not so much rocks for this, but bits of paper, receipts (she loves receipts) and feathers. Also sand. She loves using her hat as a sand bucket.

Today she came home with a streak of red texta on her face and said it The Devil Child (not his real name, obviously) had scratched her face. Last week she claimed he punched her in the throat. I say "claimed" because the way she said it, it was rather fishy- added on to her original story as an afterthought. But then- its the Devil Child after all, and dude I saw him fighting two other boys bigger than him and he wasn't losing. Willow also has a slight habit of embellishing her war wound stories, and like most 4 year olds, she loves attention- and wounds are a good way to go. Example: the other day she was rolling around on the floor, sobbing that her finger hurt, wailing, begging for pain relief... For a wound she had done the night before. Another example: she scraped her elbow. I shrugged and said she was fine. Willow then trotted off to her friend's parents to gain their sympathy. Two days later she comes home from pre school with a bandaid over it, so she must have been doing her dramatics there.

Last week she came home from preschool and casually mentioned that "Dean saved my life." On further questioning of her interesting statement, she explained that "everyone in the world" was in danger of breaking her news (one of those oil and water dripper timer things- she brought it in for her news day) and then the DevilChild SCRATCHED it with a stick (she showed me the scratch as evidence DUDE ITS HARD PLASTIC HOW ROUGH WAS HE BEING?) and then explained she got quite upset so Dean said "stop it! That's Willow's news!" and put it in a high place. Dean's parents are very proud of him, although Dean said he only told the other kids to stop it.

M tells willow that next time the DevilChild hits her, she should get something heavy and hit him over the head. Willow considered his advice very doubtfully. I pointed out he hasn't seen the DevilChild in action. Willow still mentions the time he threw wood chips in her eyes, and according to her, he's in the habit of throwing sand into her face. Her best friend Xander also said that the DevilChild threw a rock at him. Plus there's his habit of pushing and shoving other kids over. Some kids are best avoided.

We also met DevilChild 2.0 at the playground last weekend. He spent several hours beating up the other kids, punching, and climbing up the outside of the slide, while nana watched benignly on. She never seemed to notice that her son was picking fights with all the other kids. He was climbing up the outside of the slide when he slipped and fell from my head height onto the ground. I nearly wet myself, nana unconcernedly watched on, and he picked himself up and wandered off to repeatedly punch one of Willow's friends. Later, DevilChild 2.0 and his nana joined Willow and I at the craft table, and was all "isn't this lovely? We like it here. We might come back next week."
NOOOOOO.