A Meme for Herher

I really don't understand why y'all keep on tagging me with meme's. I do believe I might be the worst bloggy Mommy of all time at doing them. Take this one, for example, from Sophie at A Hole in the Fence. It's one of my favorite memes that I've seen, and YET! it still took me a month to do it. I shall promptly give myself twenty lashes with a wet noodle. I would promise to never do it again, but I think I still have four other memes I need to do, so that wouldn't be very wise of me.

Anyway, I really wanted to do this one on Alexis' birthday, but then life interfered with blogging and I didn't have the time I wanted to make sure I did it right and proper. I don't really have the time now either, but I'm making the time.

5 things I want my kid to know:
1. Don't be ashamed to be smarter than someone else, but don't ever make anyone else feel stupid.
2. Kindness is the greatest gift you can give to the world.
3. The world does not, in fact, revolve around you. My world, however, does.
4. There isn't anything you can't talk to me about. I may not always enjoy the topic of our conversations, but I will always enjoy talking with you.
5. It's perfectly acceptable to sleep through the night. It might even be pleasurable.

5 things you want to tell your child when she is grown up:
1. I don't know who originally said it, but my favorite quote is one that every adult should live by:
"Destiny is not a matter of chance,
it is a matter of choice.
It is not something to be waited for,
it is something to be achieved."
2. Live every day as if it will be your last, but remember, you have all the time in the world.
3. If you don't think you make mistakes, you are clearly mistaken.
4. A good sense of humor can help you get through anything. So can a good friend.
5. Don't even complain to me about your kid(s) watching annoying television shows. Paybacks are a bitch, and so is Dora.

5 things you want to tell your child before you die:
1. You father and I have never loved anyone as much as we do you.
2. It's much more important to be a hard worker than it is to be smart.
3. As much of your Grandma's story as I can tell.
4. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known.
5. That time you mixed peas with refried beans then fed it to me? I REALLY did not find that to be gourmet cooking at its best.

5 things you want your child to know before she dies:
1. The love of a child.
2. There is exactly one person you can control--yourself.
3. What it is that you can do that no one else can do quite as well.
4. What it is that you can do that anybody else can do better, but that you enjoy immensely.
5. Who you are.

Your turn Holly, Jayna, Karen, Colleen, Mishelle, Madame Queen, all of the Jens, and anybody else who wants it.

All the Fun Stuff is in the Kid's Room

Since there simply can never be enough animals in this house, quite a while ago Mr. Husband and I decided to put a saltwater aquarium in Alexis' room. I have to admit, despite the fact that it cost a small fortune to set the thing up, it has turned out to be a good decision. Countless mornings I have trudged into Alexis' room to wake her up only to find that she was already wide awake, standing next to the aquarium staring at her fish.

At one point in time, she had two fish. There was the Nemo-looking fish that Daddy picked out, and the crazy cool Mandarin Goby that I selected. Daddy did much research before picking his fish. I saw a psychedelic bright-colored thing and bought it on the spot. Irony of all ironies, my fish turned out to be a meat-eater. So the fourteen-year vegetarian had to set out and find sources of live animals for Mandy (my fishy's name) to eat. I was hatching brine shrimp, buying crazy expensive INVISIBLE things called pods online, and cutting up pieces of frozen dead gunk to feed him. Then we went to Indiana for Thanksgiving, and Mandy died of starvation because he ran out of food sources while we were gone. I probably should mention that I had ordered Mandy a delicious bag full of hundreds of invisible things that arrived while we were gone. Mandy's food died in the mailbox while we were in Indy and while he was starving to death. How's that for a whole bunch of senseless deaths at one time?

Admittedly, I was sort of relieved when Mandy kicked the bucket. Keeping live food sources around for him was some serious work, and not cheap. He was going through $20 worth of food per month. The two cats combined don't eat $20 worth of food in a month, and one of them is a fat slob. I never once enjoyed the whole raising brine shrimp process, especially when the goal was to watch a fish devour hundreds of them in a matter of minutes. His death was a good thing. Really.

Remember I said I thought the invisible things died in the mailbox? I actually dumped the bag in the aquarium for kicks, just on the off chance that one or two had survived. I think it's safe to say at least two survived. It turns out the invisible things grow to be less invisible. Then some of them grow to be almost big. Those no longer invisible things? Look just like bugs and worms. Gross, nasty, little bugs and worms. And now that there is no predator for icky critters, they are proliferating. It has reached the point where I'm no longer willing to stick my hands in the tank to clean it because that would be like sticking my hand in a bucket full of insects.

Then tonight I thought I would research what the worm-like things that are in the tank are called. Some of them have gotten pretty big--as in at least four inches long. Guess what? The damn things are not only considered pests, they can grow to 12 inches and have been known to BITE HUMANS.

Good thing the tank is in the Toddler's room and not mine, because you couldn't pay me to sleep next to a tank filled with bugs and man-eating worms. The Toddler just better hope her new sleeping buddy, Coal, will protect her.

Toddlers and Teens Are All the Same

Some time ago, the Toddler got the idea in her head that she is in charge of the radio in the car. If I try to listen to sports radio, she loudly voices her need to hear music. Once I turn on music, she voices her need to listen to different music. Given her choice in things, I do believe the child would listen to SexyBack by Justin Timberlake and Maneater by Nelly Furtado at least 37,492 times in a row. Oh, wait. Maybe that's how many times we've already listened to those songs. Either way, I've gotten so sick of those two songs that I've actually contemplated buying Britney's new album. I know, that's some desperate shizznet right there. (Don't worry, my dear husband will make sure I don't actually stoop to that level.)

In my fervent attempts to put an end to the recurring assault on my ears, I have decided to try something new in the car. Every day when I pick Alexis up from school, I try to engage her in some sort of conversation as we make the four minute trek to our house. I usually ask her what she did at school, who she did it with, whether or not it was fun, what she ate, and all of your basic attempts at small talk, albeit with a person who still thinks the sentence "I pooped in the potty" warrants a parade and three ring circus, even if she didn't actually perform the aforementioned task. Let's just say she's not quite yet a master conversationalist.

Some days I actually get some meaningful answers from her. For example, I do believe that today she played with Barbies and that Shelle read her a story. Last week she told me a hysterical story about Eva Dawn. I don't really know what the story was about, since I could only understand Eva's name, but Alexis sure did think it was a funny story. She literally had tears streaming down her face as she gasped to tell the story in between giggling fits.

Most days, our conversations are pretty one-sided. I ask a question, she answers yes or no. I ask another question, she rolls her eyes at me then answers yes or no. I ask a question, she sighs and then answers yes or no. I ask yet another question, she whines then answers yes or no. It has not escaped my attention that these little three to four minute conversations are just the beginning of a lifetime of her getting annoyed at me for asking too many questions. Hopefully when she's a teenager and we're back to one or two word answers (assuming, of course, that somewhere along the line she learns to actually talk to me in complete paragraphs), I'll be able to look back at these days and remember when our conversations were choppy and awkward because her vocabulary was limited, and not because she hates me.