NOW will you homeschool me?

I've mentioned the six-year-old... You know, Michelle Obama's biggest fan. The one who dreams of taking over the world and remaking it to suit her whims.

She wants to be homeschooled.

Now homeschooling is a touchy subject at Casa De Scratch. One of the supposed grownups is all for it (can ya guess who?). One feels homeschooling would deprive them of socialization. (Bear in mind, three of my five are female. To me, socialization=boys, so I don't have a huge problem depriving them. Regardless...)

She asked if we'd homeschool her. To her credit, it's hard to argue with the logic she used:

"I already know more than any of the second graders (she's in first). And I can read books as high as they'll let me (to her utter frustration, school policy is that she can't take out books above her grade level). I could read your books, I bet!"

Aaahhh. Now she's getting cocky.

I turned to the bottom step, where I always have a pile of books, and shuffled through them. (I generally have books in almost every room, most with bookmarks where I left off. I read whichever is closest to where I perch, and usually have several going at once.)

I handed her Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. (I'm an Everest nut along with all my other uber-dorky qualities.)

So. She opens the book... clears her throat... looks at me like I'm a freakin' idiot for challenging her... and reads a passage. (Full disclosure: she stumbled over "carabiner" and "oxygenated". Not too shabby. She also got really upset that she couldn't make heads or tails of a few words... until I explained they aren't in English and she can't read a language she can't speak.)

I take the book, turn to another chapter, and return it.

With an even more blistering look, she reads another passage.

Then she looks me right in the eye and asks, "NOW will you homeschool me?"

Uh-oh.