Run With The Fishes

Picture this:

A mom and her five year old daughter walking through the supermarket together. The daughter is perched on the bottom of the cart, holding the bar, while the mom pushes the cart.

The little girl usually hums or sings a song or just talks to herself so sometimes the mother only half way listens. As they walk past the cheese section, the mother hears, “not a grown up so can’t have babies”.

Mom, “Hey, what are you talking about?”.
Daughter, “Well Mom, I’m not a grown up, so I can’t have babies yet, right?”
Mom, “Right, you must be a grown up and married to have babies.”*
Daughter, “Okay, So, you have to be a grown up to have babies. Even if you love the person. Right?”
Mom (wondering where in the world this is going), “Correct-o-mundo”
Daughter, “That’s alright. It’s just I love Andrew.”

This is where if you were in my head you would have heard that weird record scratch/rewind sound. It was followed by these thoughts in quick succession. What the??? You’re five! Your brother and sister didn’t like girls or boys at all when they were your age! Who is this Andrew kid? Do I need to have a talk with his mother? Ok, play it cool. Do not make a huge deal of this, she is only five after all and it is sort of cute.

Mom, “So, Andrew huh? Have you kissed him yet or anything.”
Daughter (with as much teenage eyeroll as she can muster), “We aren’t allowed to kiss at school. Duh!”.

I think, because of the age difference between Allison and her older brother and sister, she has hit some of her developmental stages early. She walked at 9 months, talked at 14, and was potty trained before her 2 year birthday.

This latest stage has thrown me for a loop.

*I know that you must not be these things, but for now, I would prefer my children to believe this is the case.

Sometime on Saturday, our hot water heater stopped working. Since it was 17 years old, it was probably time. We washed a few loads of laundry on cold only. We pretended we were camping by boiling the water to use for washing dishes. Then, since it was only going to be one full day before a new water heater would be put in, just skipped on showers/baths.

Today when the new hot water heater arrived, it was too tall. The correct size to fit in our pantry could not be found anywhere in our little town. One was ordered and will be here sometime tomorrow. Another day of boiling water to wash dishes. This time we added in drawing baths, ala Maverick. While it wasn’t too bad today, I sure hope the one coming tomorrow fits.

This weekend we decided to check out the people with puppies in the Walmart parking lot. On Saturday everyone had pit bulls. Um, no thanks. I’m sure it’s all in how you raise them, but with three kids around we just aren’t willing to take a chance that one day it could be aggressive.

As we were leaving Sunday (Yes we went back to back days to the store. Even with lists, I still forget things) a truck full of puppies was just pulling into the lot. Guess who took one home.

Meet Starlight – part hound dog, part neighbor dog.

Hey everyone! Guess what! It’s Delurking Day. Time to stand confident, step forward, put out your hand and introduce yourself in comments. Whether you have commented here or not, everyone is welcome to participate. If have a blog of your own, be sure to let everyone there know that it’s Delurking Day.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

I spent the night watching LA Ink last night. Those guys are some really talented artists. I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of a tattoo. The only hangup (besides the pain) is that I just can’t think of anything I would want on my body forever.

What do you think of tattoos? If you were to get one, either your first or an additional, what would it be? Where would you get it?

Time for a new banner across the top. I liked Cindy’s idea of changing the tree to match the season many months ago and have stuck with it.

Sometimes I just feel like there is too much clutter around and in what I do. It makes it hard to stay focused, to think creatively, to see which direction I should be heading. My goal is to simplify things in my life; what I eat and in relation – my body size, how we spend money, the way I think about things, what I do with my free time.

I want to be a better role model for my children. Sometimes I feel like I bring them down and pick at the things they do instead of building them up to be strong, capable, caring and intelligent people. I’ve gotten better at it over this year, but there is still a long way to go in just letting them make some of their own choices instead of controlling how they do every little thing.

I’m going to challenge myself to use the Wii fit every day. I took measurements of myself and am going to recheck in a month to see if any progress has been made. I haven’t decided on whether or not to put it out here on the blog. If I do, it may motivate me to keep it up. I’m not really sure that I want that info out there for all of the world to see. Maybe after a few months, if I’ve kept it up and have great results, I’ll let you guys in. I’m not worried about the weight part. I am right on the borderline for my height. I would just like to be in much better shape.

I want to get back to sewing things. In the past few months, I made a few Christmas presents and a baby quilt. I didn’t realize how much I had missed doing those things until I actually started them again. Now to decide on the projects I want to do.

Not really resolutions for the new year, but rather life goals. Small, simple things to try and achieve. Have any goals you are trying to accomplish?

Wednesday when Allison realized that not only was it the last day of 2008, but also the last day of Project 366, “Today’s the last day? Finally, now we can get on with our lives.” I’ve made a little collage of my favorites from over the past year. It really is fun to be able to look back at each and every day and see what was captured.

I’m not going to set the goal to take a picture every day. Instead, I’ll leave that part up to Nathan. I am thrilled and think it will be really interesting to see what he thinks is worthy of being a picture of the day. I want to focus on taking better pictures. What I really want to do, and this is going to sound strange, is figure out how to take really sharp and lovely pictures of food. I have tried a few times over on the food stuff pages, but usually the the pictures I take look unappetizing even when they are truly delicious.

Any one have some good tips on how I can manage that?

_{1. 1/11/08 – day 11, 2. 1/3/08 – day 3, 3. 10/18/08 – Day 292, 4. 2/28/08 – day 59, 5. 3/7/08 – Day 67, 6. 3/14/08 – Day 74, 7. 3/25/08 – Day 85, 8. 4/14/08 – Day 105, 9. 5/14/08 – Day 135, 10. 5/28/08 – Day 149, 11. 6/12/08 – Day 164, 12. Day 181 – Sisters, 13. 7/15/08 – Day 197, 14. 9/17/08 – Day 261, 15. 11/13/08 – Day 318, 16. 9/26/08 – Day 270}

We offered to watch a friend’s daughters tonight so that she and her husband could enjoy the night without kiddos.

I thought this was a fitting end for the year and this project.

Happy New Year Everyone!