Run With The Fishes

We have been getting so many catalogs in the mail. Allison loves it. The ones with toys have been mailed to her specifically. She thinks. When she finds something she really likes we tell her that we can write it on her Christmas list for Santa.

Forget about Santa. Allison keeps telling us, “that guy from Nightmare Before Christmas is going to bring me this”. When we ask if she means Santa, she replies, “No, the Jack guy. Only he’s not going to bring this thing, because he doesn’t like it very much. He’ll bring that for you.”

Listening to this story this morning made me all teary eyed. I’m a sucker for Charlie Brown. I record the specials when they come on so that the kids and I can enjoy it together. It never fails that eventually, I am the only one actually paying attention to the television. This year seems to be different. Allison watched the whole Thanksgiving special with me then asked for it again.

The other day we went to pick up Nathan’s friend so that he could spend the night at our house. These friends also have a little boy maybe a year older than Allison. He was so excited when we got there. Forget about Nathan and his older brother, he was sure that Allison had come to visit him. He was right of course.

This little boy is about as rough and tumble as they come. He would much rather be wrestling, out in the dirt, or playing with his big trucks than doing anything else. At one point when the two of them were pretending to be elephants or something, he suddenly stopped and looked up at his mom, “Momma, she smells so good!”. Then he spent about the next 5 minutes going up to Allison and smelling her. Allison thought it was hilarious.

Maybe 10 minutes later he started making pucker lips and kissy sounds towards Allison’s direction. When I asked him what he was doing, he looked up at his mom and said, “I’ve got to kiss her. Please, momma. Let me kiss her.” His mom looked bewildered. I’m fairly certain he hasn’t acted like that before. I told him that maybe he could give her a goodbye kiss when it was time for us to leave. He kept pleading with his mom that he just had to kiss her the rest of the time we were there.

If this is already happening when she is 3, I can only imagine the trouble we are in for 10 years from now.

*When did she stop looking like a toddler and start looking like a little girl?

I made these for Thanksgiving to try something new. They are much better when served warm. I also think I am going to try an extra bit of flavor by adding some mushrooms in with the onions when sauteing.

Amy recommended doing this the other day. I’m going to cheat a little and steal some of my answers from this post. Oh, the capital of Novia Scotia is Halifax. A little known fact, unless you’re from there or something, Halifax was the first North American all electrically street lighted city. Go Halifax!

1. I never sneeze just once. I normally sneeze 3 times in a row. They aren’t girly (ah-choo) sneezes either, but whole body, really loud sneezes (AHHHH-CHOOOOO).

2. I can only fall asleep if I am laying on my left side. I’m pretty sure it’s because that’s the recommended sleeping position for pregnant women and I had to train myself to sleep that way 3 times. Since writing this one, I realized that I always start on my right side and stay there for a few minutes in that half-awake, half-asleep stage. Then when it’s time for me to do some hard core sleeping, I roll over to my left side.

3. I won’t go into a room that is dark. I always turn the light on before I go into it. If I don’t turn the light on, I hurry, hurry, hurry to get out quick.

4. When I had longer hair (before I got 8 inches cut off 2 months ago), if I was working hard or thinking deeply about something, I had to have my hair off of my neck. More often than not, I would be sporting a pony tail. Much like Violet, who ties her hair up in a ribbon.

5. I make a list for just about everything. To-do lists, grocery lists, dinner lists, present lists, wish lists, lists of lists….

6. I don’t bite my nails, but I do chew on my lips. It’s totally involuntary and I mostly do this when my lips are dry. I try to keep some kind of chapstick with me all the time to prevent this.

7. Every day, as soon as I get home from work, I visit the bathroom*. It doesn’t matter if I went right before my oh so long 2 minute journey home.

8. I am a checker. Not the checks that you make to show you have completed something (although I do use those for my lists). I constantly check the stats to my site. Which, hello, it’s always the same 10 people that view it regularly**. I also constantly check my bank account online. It’s updated daily not hourly. So yes, it’s the same as it was 30 minutes ago and it’s exactly what I thought it should be.

Is it sad that I can’t think of 2 more weird habits? That just makes me slightly more normal than the people who have 10, right? I’m not going to tag anyone. If you want to do it, knock yourself out.

*what’s the best way to say this? I tried about 3 different choices (go to the restroom, use the loo, say, “Hi” to johnny) before finally settling on this.

**There are definitely some odd searches going on in the world though. Some constants are “dirty feet”, “pregnant girls”, and “banana hammock”.

Last night, Allison and I were enjoying some quality time watching TV and snuggling on the sofa.

Allison: “Mom, can I have some string cheese?”
Me: “Yep, go get it.”
Allison: “Mom, will you get it for me?”
Me: “Nah, you can get it yourself.”
Allison: “You can get it for me.”
Me: “Nope, if you’re hungry, you can get it.”
Allison: “No, you can”
Me: “No, you can”

We went back and forth a few more times. Then Allison said, “Mom. I know! You get it for me, and I can eat it. That’s called teamwork.”

This entry was originally written November 16, 2006 about a just barely 3 year old. I forgot to hit the publish button until February 17, 2008.

She spends the day singing, watching TV, and playing pretend with random toys. Each day it seems like she has a new imaginary friend. If someone tries to scare her by telling her the Boogey man is coming, She just tells them that he is her friend.

She is tough. The other day she fell on the gravel and scraped her arm pretty badly. She cried for a few seconds then shrugged it off. “I’m okay now Mom”. I don’t know where she gets this, she is just our country kid, I guess.

She is incredibly helpful. She loves to help out in the kitchen and when I have packages to pour in, or eggs to crack, she is ready. Yesterday, I asked Nathan and Zoey if they had put something away when they were done with it. Before they could answer and take care of it, Allison called out, “I’m on the job, Mom!”.

For the past few weeks, I haven’t been inspired to write about much. I think of a topic, and then half-way through writing about it, I get easily distracted and it feels like my words just start falling off of the page.

Type, type, type, fizzle.

It’s not that there aren’t things happening, because there are. It feels like these have been a couple of the busiest weeks I have ever had. I don’t even really know why. They aren’t that different than usual. Maybe it’s the birthday, Thanksgiving, then HOLY CRAP we only have 3 weeks left before Christmas, time of year that makes it feel rushed.

Allison has been saying some insanely smart and clever things. Things you wouldn’t expect to hear coming from a freshly turned 3 year old. I know this because each time she does it, Greg and I look at each other with the, “Did she just actually say that?” looks. Can I think of a single example? Nope. You will just have to take my word for it.

Anyone have anything they are curious about? Whether it’s something about me, the family, or what’s happening in Cambodia, I’ll do some research and report back.

Allison and I* had low-key birthdays this year. She would say, “Happy Birthday, Mom!”, then look at me and tell me to say it back. When we asked how old she was, she would tell us (of course) that she was six. Eventually she actually will be six, so someday this answer will be correct.

The younger boys spent most of the time outside on the trampoline or playing football, while the older boys spent some time with Greg’s jeep.

That’s right! My dad brought Greg’s jeep down. The jeep we were starting to think was imaginary, just because we bought it 3 months ago and still hadn’t seen it. It was much bigger in real life than in the pictures my brother sent. It was also much dirtier. It looks like someone took it off-road right before we got it. I think that Allison was possibly more excited than Greg was. She wanted to climb in it right away and go for a ride. It was still hooked to the towbar so my dad pulled Zoey and Allison around the driveway.

The party wasn’t really a party. My parents were here and we invited some friends who have daughters relatively close in age to Allison and Zoey. We all had dinner and then it was on to the cake and presents (Allison hit the jackpot!).

Remember when Nathan and Zoey were younger? When I actually baked and decorated their cakes. There were some pretty cool ones; the fancy easter cake, Blue, the Power Puff girls, a butterfly, Sponge Bob. Even just last year Nathan got a cake shaped like a baseball. Those were the days. Allison really wanted a chocolate Cinderella cake (”Please, NOT Cupcakes, Mom!!”). This is what she got.

Bake a cake, Then make it look really fancy by putting some cheap Cinderella on top. She didn’t really seem to mind. The cake was delicious. When there is nothing left but the crumbs, I guess it doesn’t really matter what it looks like. However, when you compare this with past cakes, it feels a little like she is getting the short end of the stick. There is always next year.

On Sunday, right after everyone left for their long drives home, Allison decided the party weekend was over. She began taking down all of the balloons she had hung up around the room (all about 3′ high). After the balloons were all on the floor she very systematically began popping them. Her method to popping was to put a balloon in her mouth and bite. She did this to about 20 balloons. I tried it on one and Man!! those suckers are loud.

My kids don’t clean out pockets before they put clothes into the laundry baskets. It’s not from lack of warnings. They know that anything found in pockets becomes property of whoever does the washing. As they get older, I am sure I will find some pretty interesting stuff.

This year Nathan and one of his buddies have been passing notes to eachother. I so wish that I had kept the first ones I found. They were both on the same football team and the paper was filled with plays that they each made up, complete with X’s and O’s for the positions.

This is the latest in the note acquisitions*.

Now that the football season over, they rush home, do their homework and then each play their Madden football. I especially like the examples given so that they can properly compare scores.

*If you want to see the whole page, just click on the picture.