Yesterday evening the phone rang. I was in another room, and dashed to get it, thinking it was OmegaDad. OmegaDotter got it first. "Hello?" "Um...My daddy's not home." (Cringe. Teach dotter to not say that.) "But you can talk to my mom--she's really nice!" Dotter hands me the phone. It's a telemarketer, very amused to be talking to the "really nice" lady. I'm not taking the "really nice" too much to heart (oh, yeah, if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you!) because that morning, the dotter had informed me that I was ugly. I didn't take that one too much to heart, either, because she was giggling madly as she said it. Half an hour later, at school, she informed K's mom that she "looked really pretty today!", which K's mom had to tell me all about because it was "so sweet!" Anyway. While I was working on the dotter's fingernails, and she was squirming and dancing and jumping and being, generally, a PITA when it comes to getting fingernail polish on, we worked on telephone etiquette. My example: "Hello, this is the S. residence, OmegaDotter speaking. May I help you?" Her echo: "Hello, this is the...um...reffimum, OmegaDotter mumph. Help you?" We tried a few more times. This may take a while.