Tea for two...or three...or four

So last week, my parents came over and brought a late Christmas present for N. Her very first porcelain tea set. She's had a plastic tea pot that plays music and two plastic cups, but this is the first full tea set and she is quite enthralled.I drink tea every morning, so we've done a lot of pretending with that and her plastic cups, and a couple of weeks ago I gave her a little chamomile with honey to see if it would help when she had a sore throat. I don't like chamomile myself, just had it on hand from a gift set, so I wasn't surprised when she wasn't a big fan. I need to find some herbal tea for her to play with in her set. The stuff I drink every morning is strong black tea (I'm addicted to Teavana Black Dragon Pearls although I do have some oolong and some darjeeling and a little chai mate to break things up a little) and I don't want to give her caffeine, so I need to get some herbal stuff. I'm not a big herbal tea person myself.Btw, I drink my tea from my Jennie the Potter mug. I didn't know anything about her when I got this several years ago in a swap and I feel lucky to have one of her mugs because they are hard to get. I just knew I loved the mug and that it is the perfect size, color, and shape for tea. I have some other mugs, but those are just for guests now because I absolutely adore my sheep mug.N earned the opossum at her gymnastics class last week. She was invited on to and joined the pre-team class for 3-4 year olds and their mascot is a opossum. An "awesome opossum". I'm wondering if someone had a bet that they could get little kids excited about winning a stuffed animal that looks a lot like a rat. Anyway, she won it Thursday, so she gets to keep it until her next class on Tuesday and she has been over the moon. I know she knows she has to give it back, but I think she is going to be pretty broken hearted for a while if she doesn't win it every time.

She was very, very sad after the third time in the new class when she realized that you have to earn it and they don't just give it to you because you asked for it and the other little girls were getting to take it home. Last Thursday during her fourth class she had her heart set on it and she wasn't perfect, but she did a better job of listening and trying because of it and then she did get it. We'll see how she handles it when she doesn't always get it. Disappointment can be hard for a 3yo to handle and we've just told her that if she doesn't earn it, it is not because she didn't try hard, but because someone else tried hard too, so she needs to keep doing her best and trying hard and then she will win it again someday. Of course, I'm sure all the talk will go out the window once someone else gets the opossum, but she does understand about taking turns, so even if it isn't just about turns, maybe she'll be okay with it all.
In the meantime, though, the opossum has attended a full schedule of tea parties and is currently at pre-school. N is the "star of the week", so she took a little poster board of photos and she gets to take show-and-tell both days this week, which she is super excited about. Of course, the opossum was a no-brainer for the first show and tell and she wants to take the remote-control fire truck she got for Chanukah on Wednesday. The fire truck was kind of out of left field. She likes it and plays with it now and then, but I was really surprised it ranked show-and-tell status. You just never can tell what is going through their little heads. :-)