Eavesdropping On Olivia

Olivia dictated the following email to her principal and second-grade teacher. It is so amusing and endearing, we decided to share it with all our other blog followers:

Dear Mrs. Rassmussen and Mrs. Graydon:

I miss you very much. Me and Daddy are finally getting to understand each other. Have you been looking at my blog? I like that I have my own room here in London but Daddy keeps saying that if my sisters get scared at night, they can come into MY room, which is very annoying. The most popular thing here is the tube. There are lots of them. I am learning to use the tube map. It's very fun. I have to walk to the tube which is about 5-10 minutes, depending on if Cecily is riding on Daddy's shoulders or not. When I get there, I have a choice of lines, and I have to figure out if we are going to the north, the south, the east or the west because there are trains in all directions. I like the tubes better than the busses because the busses take longer. I mean after we get to the tube stop, I don't mind the busses because they carry us to a direct spot. I'm seeing lots and lots of things. The best thing so far is probably the Big Eye. I don't really like museums although I want to go back to the British Museum because I read about a copy of the Rosetta Stone which kids can touch. I didn't get to touch it last time I was there. I'm learning to write in cursive. I think the hardest letters are the f's and the capital G's. It's fun writing in cursive, and it doesn't take as long as printing. We went to the National Portrait Gallery, and Daddy was amazed at how much I could remember from it. I told him all about James and Charles and how James II dressed up like a girl, got into the river Thames and threw his Great Seal into the river and ran away into France. What had happened before when he was a boy was he had to go to France because his father King Charles I got his head chopped off which meant him and his big brother had to run away to France. So he had to go to France two times, and he died there and he didn't get to come back. He got into a fight with Parliament and his father got into a fight with parliament and he got his head chopped off, and he didn't want to get his head chopped off, so that's why he ran away. They offered the throne to his son-in-law and his daughter, and they asked those people to come chase him away. Well, I have to go to bed now. Sincerely, Olivia