Snakes & snails & puppy dog tails & little GIRLS

Well, Donovan has completely ruined my little girl. Savanna is now obsessed with frogs and lizards. She can hardly wait until the sun goes down so she can go outside to look for the frogs and lizards. She knows all the places where the lizards hide in the back yard during the day too because Aaron showed her. Great! At least she washes her hands often.

Let's hope she doesn't pick up this from Donovan: Wednesday when they were here, he said, "Aunt April, can I play game cube? or else I'll kick your butt." I don't know what you're teaching him, Jill, but we don't talk like that in this house.

Bobbi has been taking Aaron for drives this week for about 15 minutes at a time. It's good because I didn't know when I'd get the chance, and he's building up practice.

Aaron started to ask me a question about biology today. It started like this: "Mom, you've pretty much lived your life out, right . . .?" I said, "Um, NO! What is that supposed to mean?" He was just wondering if in any of my life experiences I ever had the need to know what phylum germs are in? I told him to quit it. He's just making excuses now, but he blew it with the wording of the question.

I've realized something today. You know how we're all kind of this fake person with some of our friends? Like maybe we clean really well before they come over or pretend like we have it all together instead of sharing our junk? It's kind of like kids in daycare. The daycare kids are really good and pretty much well-behaved all day. Then when their parents pick them up, they melt down and act normal (sometimes rebellious and bratty) because they're comfortable with their parents. It's a burden and stressful for them to be putting on this act all day. This is like those of us who aren't sure of their abilities to entertain people. When people are over it's fun, but we're not quite sure if they are comfortable being at our house. So when they leave, maybe we're relieved "the act" is over. I don't want to be this way. I've gotten a lot better with it, so this doesn't apply to me at all, I'm sure. It's just an observation I've realized must fit other people (based on how I used to be). I'm sure you understand.

I'm a little sad because I feel rejected and deserted today. Sometimes I blame all the kids for that, and that's just not fair to them. (Like if I didn't have so many, maybe I wouldn't be a burden to other people.) I don't even know that I am a burden; I'm just putting that on other people because of low self-esteem and those negative voices in my head that Angie talked about.