WE HAVE A KNITTER!!!

13YO has a few goals this summer.

1. Learn Spanish.

2. Read two more of the Twilight books.

3. Memorize the Preamble of the Constitution.

4. Learn to knit.

She has checked out a few books on learning Spanish from our library. She's taken notes and practiced pronouncing things. She likes to try to 'shush' everyone around her when she's 'studying.' We sort of laugh her off and tell her to go to her room if she needs silence. There are, afterall, four other people in this house! And it's SUMMER VACATION for crying out loud!

She's almost done with New Moon, then she'll be ready to take on the next one. Between school and softball, she had little to no time for reading for pleasure. She loves to read.

The Preamble thing is coming along pretty well, too. She gets a little hung up on one part, but the rest of it is pretty easy for her. It also helps that I still know it all by heart from when I had to memorize it in the 8th grade myself. I think that I didn't really learn all that much when I was in junior high and the few things I did learn really stuck or something. There's no other way to explain why I still know some Dr. Demento thing, the McDonald's Menu Song, and both my locker numbers and combinations for my gym locker and my outside locker from the 7th grade.

Just don't ask me where I parked my car when I'm walking out of Target...and, if you find me wandering aimlessly in the parking lot don't worry: I always find my car eventually!

The last thing on her list is also in the works. She's plugging right along on the knitting thing. She knitted a couple of little practice swatches and now she's attempting a scarf. Her knitting really doesn't look any different than when I started knitting myself. Toward the end of the scarf, I'm sure her knitting will have already improved in leaps and bounds.

All she can really do is the actual knit stitch, but we'll soon be working on how she holds the yarn, purling, and reading patterns. It will be nice having another knitter in the house. Once school starts again, I'm sure she'll have to put the needles away for awhile. They say 8th grade is pretty tough and school always comes first.

I'm very proud. It's odd getting to a place where one of my children and I are more on the same level. Don't get me wrong...I am still and will always be her MOTHER first and foremost, but it's nice to have more in common with her now. She's 13. I'm going to blink and she'll be starting high school, dating, going off to college, etc.

Can we let her learn to knit and then stop any further growth? I'm just getting used to this.

Deflated Dogs, Crookneck Squash, and Allergy Meds

Aly is growing...STILL! It's going to get old saying that, but I'm still in constant amazement as to how big she'll get. I mean, I KNOW how big she could get, but seeing it happen before my eyes is still kind of cool. She's longer and lankier than ever. When she lies on the couch, she almost looks deflated!

OH....and there's a crookneck squash from the garden! When she's asleep, you can put almost everything on her. She sleeps like a ROCK! And when she plays, nothing gets in her way.

I get to take her tomorrow for her final shot and her rabies vaccination as well. Now that she's four months old, I also need to think about getting her fixed. It doesn't seem like she's old enough, but that's around the next corner. Pretty soon, we'll have a full-grown boxer that still thinks she's a puppy. She's already tall enough to snatch things off the kitchen table, yet she's not old enough (or smart enough) to understand how angry that makes us. We now have a 'NO FOOD AT THE TABLE IF YOU'RE NOT SITTING IN FRONT OF IT' rule.

I bought a 'clicker trainer' at the store yesterday. Here's hoping it works before she gets tall enough to reach things on the kitchen counter. It has to...we're running out of surfaces!

I have to run to whatever radiology place that's close...and that takes my insurance...to get the sinus x-ray I forgot to get yesterday when I was actually there. DOH! There's an infection, but it's the second one in a little more than a month (or the very same one!) and they want to get a better look at it. THAT is what is aggravating my stupid asthma! That is what makes me wake up with a headache when I HAVEN'T been to a bangin' party. (Yes. I said 'BANGIN.' I don't know what got into me. I'll try not to let it happen again.) These new allergy meds are making me a little odd-feeling. FOSHIZZLE!!!

Oh yeah...it's definitely the new meds!