The word of the day is....

Sassy.  I regret to inform you that my daughter is fascinated with the idea of being sassy.

Take, for example, this conversation we had last week:
Mia:  Mom, take a picture of me doing my sassy smile.
Me:  You mean your insecure smile?
Mia:  No, I said SASSS-SSSYYY smile.  It's where you kind of go like this:

instead of like this:

Me:  Mia, I'm not really comfortable with you trying to be sassy.  Sassy is code for insecure.

Mia:  MOTH-THER  WHY DO YOU ALWAYS SAY THINGS LIKE THAT?

Me:  Things like what, the truth?

Mia:  Sometimes I just want to smile sassy.  That doesn't mean I have to act sassy, it just means I don't want to smile like a baby anymore. 

And then my heart broke just a little bit because I was reminded that my daughter is turning into a sassy 1st grader (tomorrow) with a feather in her hair and I sometimes still see her as a baby with an oversized bow.

And speaking of tomorrow, this boy will officially be four and judging from this picture he doesn't yet have a clue about "sassy smiles." 

 "Dude, your sister said make a sassy face not a freak face."

 Today is officially the last day of our summer so I am going to soak in the feather and the spiderman suit while I still can.  

And I'm going to continue the fight against the sassy face, one picture at a time.

Wish me luck.