Run With The Fishes

So this is Nathan’s first year in pads.

8-9 year olds.

Day One.

He’s head/shoulders smaller than everyone on his team. While he has comparable speed, they have longer legs, so for the most part outrun him. He’s probably lower/middle of the pack in speed.

Meaning he’s not big or fast enough to be rb/qb/wr. At least not one of the ones they chose to run all the plays/routes the first day. Not that it matters, every kid wants to be a skill position, but there are only so many skill positions available. He can earn his dues and hope for next year. But he might get disheartened blocking kids so much bigger all year long.

Apparently, though, they are going to give the other kids a shot at wr practice tomorrow, so maybe they are just giving everyone a good look.

Day Two.
So no passing practice today. Instead, they seem to have already decided the qb/rb/fb (fb is one of the coaches kids, but it seems like a good spot for him. big/tough/not the fastest. Nate played left tackle. They ran all the plays to the right. (away from him).

Basically I think they are just trying to ‘hide’ him on the field.

So then they go to do some tackling practice. Sort of the Oklahoma drill without a lead blocker. Lined the kids up about 6 feet apart, facing each other, and give one the ball.

Nate’s first carry, the biggest, fattest, slowest kid is defending him. Grabs Nathan around the neck. Nate tries to keep running, but it’s all belly first since the kid has his shoulders. Nate just runs around in circles with the kid anchoring him down.

Nate’s first defense, the ballcarrier is their running back. Nate drives into the kid and pushes him back about five yards before tackling him. I was Shocked. I told him yesterday to give it his all. If hes’ not bigger/stronger, he can outhussle people. Maybe he took it to heart.

So then they line the kids about 10 yards apart and do the same thing, with a coach simulating the handoffs. Offensively Nate didn’t get away from anyone, and didn’t break a tackle. Defensively, he just couldn’t get a hand on them, they outran him. _maybe_ we can work on angles to where he at least has a shot. Depends on where they put him defensively.

The tub in our house had a huge crack in it that was actually leaking into the walls and down the hallway. At first we didn’t realize that the crack actually went through the whole bottom of the tub. After the 3rd or 4th soaking of the hall carpet we knew that something suspicious was taking place.

The plumber was called in to replace the tub since a new tub would cost less than repairing the bottom of the old tub. Good riddance to the old tub with sliding glass doors. As it happens, this is what a plumber gets paid the big bucks to do. Cut the old tub out from the wall, insert the new tub, connect all pipes back and he was done. Huge gaps in the wall where the tub no longer met up with the drywall? 6 inch space between the floor tile and the bottom of the new tub? He was not a carpenter, so was not his responsibility.

One of the good things about being a renter, is that we get to learn how to do all of this repair stuff on a house that isn’t our own, at no cost to us. By we, I mostly mean Greg.

We pulled down the wallpaper in the entire bathroom. Greg hung drywall, taped and mudded all of the joints, then I got to work on the priming and painting. Eventually we got around to fixing the gap in the floor between the tub and vinyl tile, repairing the base boards, and painting all of the trim. Here is the finished product.

About a week after we got it all finished, one of the seals broke on the cold water faucet. After much tinkering Greg, along with sidekick Allison, was able to get it fixed.

Maybe someday we will do something about the matching harvest gold toilet and tub in the other bathroom.

*project started in February and put the final touches on at the end of July. We know how to make a project last*

It seems like lately I have been putting the rotten things that Allison has been doing up here. I know it is just terrible 2’s that started early – from my expert experience in the subject (haha), they always start early with the smart ones. There are also the times when we run around the living room saying “Can’t catch me”. I will catch her and tickle her, or give her kisses all over. Then she will tell me it is my turn. She will run and catch me and do the same thing.

The times when we play puppy dogs, when she gives me puppy kisses (gross and wonderful at the same time) and we crawl around the house getting everyone to pet us. When I am reading on the sofa and she will grab a book and read along with me.

How, if she is eating something she likes, she always wants to make sure we all get some also. “Mommy, Zhazha toooooo?, Duhdan tooooo?”. And that she is so very, very helpful. Wanting to be right where we are, helping out. When Zoey got her new bed, Allison made sure she got to carry in peices of it.

That she gives the greatest hugs right now. Putting her arms around my neck, squeezing with all her might saying, “Hug!”. And how she will come up to me, out of the blue and tell me, “I nub yooooo”.

We knew Allison was going to be our trouble maker. The baby of the family who will get away with most things because,
A) she is so darn cute and
B) it is awfully hard to get onto someone when you are laughing at what they did.

This week, it seems like she is trying to prove us right. It is like a fairy flew over and turned her into a brat. If Nathan and/or Zoey are doing something that she doesn’t like, she will push them away and tell them NO!. If they are singing along with her, she will walk over to them and tell them, complete with finger over mouth, “Shhhhh, Kiet!”.

When I told her that she didn’t get to act that way, and she needed to be nice. Her response was, “Can’t be nice, mama”.

Me, “Allison, you need to be nice or sit in a chair”

“No, mama! Baby Can’t Be Nice!”.

This has me wondering the depths of her genius. If she is referring to herself as baby because she has heard me tell Nathan and Zoey that she is a baby, so doesn’t know any better. Also, it’s not like she doesn’t know what the word “can’t” means. Because, you know, she does. “Mommy, can’t reach. Pick up Allie” or while running around the living room when we are trying to change her diaper, “Can’t catch me!”

There are times when you get to glimpse into what the future might be like for your children. Sometimes they aren’t good.

Nathan as an angst-filled teenager, sulking around the house because life is just terrible to him. You know, not getting to play the playstation for 14 hours straight.

So far, I have been introduced to S&M Girl and Stoner-Allie, in the laundry room where she has figured out the light switch for the dryer. “Whoa…. cool…. wow-o-wow”. Flip around the order of the 3 words and repeat a few times. I could almost picture her 15 years from now, sitting with her friends around a refrigerator doing the same thing. *

Let’s not forget about the stripper/nudist colony days when neither one of my daughters can keep her clothes on. There were times this summer when it was so hot outside Zoey questioned why she had to wear a shirt when Nathan didn’t. “Because you’re a girl” just wasn’t a good enough answer (picture a 6 year old Olive Oil). Since we live in the middle of nowhere, with no neighbors, there were a couple of days when she got to run around just like her brother.

*


If any of my children are reading this years from now, and think this is permission, you are incorrect!

She has been unwilling to keep her pull-ups on her body. Most of the time, it’s not really that big a deal. She is old enough that we have been getting her used to going to the potty like a big girl. Don’t get me wrong, she isn’t potty trained, but usually she doesn’t mind when we sit her on the toilet. Sunday night she was refusing to put her undies on and leave them there. Greg threatened, “Allie, if you don’t keep your undies on, I am going to spank you.”

Allison,”No, Dad, No Undies!”

Greg, “Okay then, let me show you what a spanking is”. Gets Allison, pulls down her undies (ok, sort of defeating the purpose) and lightly swats her heinie. Allison jumps down. Starts to pull her undies off again.

Greg, “Alright Allison, do you want me to spank you again?”.

Allison, “No UNDIES, DAAAD.” Starting too pull them down some more. “Dad, Spank, Allie”. Undies are most of the way down and Allison is bending over and using a pitiful, begging voice, “Dad spank Allie, please!”

This is what Allison has been doing the past few days, when I try to scold her. She will look at me, purse her lips into an almost fishy face, and then move her jaw up and down. Picture a baby sucking a bottle without the bottle. If she doesn’t do this, then she will just start jibber-jabbering back at me. Last night she did this while we were sitting on the sofa. I put my hand on her face and pushed her backwards, so that instead of sitting up, she was laying down. She cracked up. Sat back up, and “More, moma!”.

In Meet the Fockers there is a part where the baby says his first word (s) and the hooo part is really elongated. Allison has started doing this. It’s like she isn’t quite sure just how long ooooo sound and oh sounds are supposed to last.

Zoey just turned 7, and because she is not the oldest we don’t have a baby book for her. Because she is the middle child, there are fewer pictures of when she was a baby. Heck, I am even writing this post almost a week after her birthday.

What a birthday it was. We went to Shreveport, because doesn’t everyone take their 7 year old to the boats to gamble? We spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon at WatertownUSA. We all had fun. On the way there we heard the chorus of “Are we there yet” from Lexi about 50 million times. When we got within sight she let out, “Oh mah goodness, we made it!”.

We stopped for a quick early lunch at the worst Wendy’s ever, then headed into the park. Zoey conquered a fear and went down one of the huge slides. The first time we went up, she started freaking out. Nathan and Zoey both have a fear of heights. Nathan’s is much worse and we couldn’t talk him into trying the slides at all. Zoey was so funny. After her first slide, she was all pumped and ready to go again. Each time, she was scared climbing the stairs, but once we got to the top, she had no fear.

After soaking ourselves, it was time for some Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The movie was decent. There were some flashbacks of Willie Wonka as a child that weren’t in the story, but for the most part it stuck to the book. Danny Elfman did a great job with the Oompa Loompa songs.

Once we were oompa’d out, we made the trek home, where the kids had icecream for dinner.

This picture is of Zoey, when she was the same age Allison is this very minute. It was taken in March of 2000. It’s pretty funny, because this is one of Allison’s favorite positions right now.