If The Shoe Fits ...

So, yesterday, in a mad rush to get ready for church, (aka: Every Sunday) I had been telling Zariah to please get her shoes on repeatedly all morning long (translation: The 45 minutes we'd been awake.) I told her right after she got dressed, I told her before I did her hair, after I did her hair, before she ate cereal, after she ate cereal, ... you get the picture. She wasn't hearing me. Well, she was probably hearing me, but she sure as heck wasn't obeying me. Not really unusual for Zariah.

We were finally heading out the door. Well ... I was yelling at everybody to head out the door. "COME ON! Are you guys kiddding me?? This is ridiculous! We need to be there 5 MINUTES AGO! What is wrong with you people? Can't we just be on time to church just once? ONCE??!? PLEASE!!!" (I know my lines pretty well because we have a dress rehearsal every single Sunday.) In the midst of the mad dash, Zariah walks up to me calmly as can be and lifts her floor-length dress up so that I can see her shoes. She has one of two different kinds of shoe on each foot. "Which shoe, Mom?" she asks me.

Now you might think that this would be last straw, the end of the line, the point at which the swollen blood vessel in my forehead ACTUALLY explodes. Surprisingly enough, it was one of the best moments in my life to date. Let me tell you why.

Zariah and I are nothing alike. We are yin and yang, night and day, He-Man and Skeletor. I have been wondering since the day she came out of my body, how it was that this child was mine. She is left brained, I am right brained. She doesn't like soup (my favorite.) She loves peanut butter (yuck!) I am constantly exaggerating, and she is constantly and meticulously correcting me. If I say, "I've told you 25 times to clean your room." She disputes, "No, actually, you've only told me 7 times." If I say, "Wait in the car for just a minute." I return to, "Actually, Mommy, you were gone for 4 and a half minutes. You lied." You get the picture.

Zariah has never asked my opinion of anything. Do you know why? It's because she doesn't care what I think. No, I'm dead serious. Even when she was 2 and 3 years old I could not buy clothes for her without her being with me. She simply would not wear them. Ever. Fantasia, on the other hand, would gladly still let me pick out an outfit for her to wear to school on any given morning. Fan is always asks me if something looks good, or what shoes she should wear with her outfit. Zariah ... never.

Fan and I are always doing the shoe thing. (I consider myself to be quite the shoe connoisseur and she is my knowledgeable and learned apprentice.) You know the shoe thing I am talking about ... the hobbling through the house with two different shoes on to get someone else's opinion on which one looks best. That shoe thing. Zariah usually throws on any old shoe, whichever ones happen to be her raggedy faves of the week, and will not change them even if I beg, plead, and offer bribes.

Are you starting to understand the meaning of our very first "shoe" interaction?? It may be the start of a glorious new relationship! It could open the doorway into her actually letting me help her choose her clothes! Her hairstyles! It could mean ... so many wonderful things!! Of course, it could also mean nothing at all. That doesn't mean that I won't treasure those 3 little magical words that moms everywhere love to hear from their daughters, "Which shoe, Mom?"

I positively glowed as we walked together into sacrament meeting. 5 minutes late. Again.

Why Is My Poop Green? (or, TMI: The Information SuperHighway Gone Wrong)

WARNING: This post contains the word "poop" several times, and while it is not necessarily about poop, it is not for those of you who may be faint of heart or of a delicate nature.

Ok, so my sister called me the other day and mentioned that she had been googling on-line to find out why her computer was running so slow. Well, as most of you know, Google has an auto-fill feature on their search bar that will attempt to predict and fill in (via drop box) the question or terms that you might be searching for. Well, my sister was going to type in the question "why is my computer so slow" in an attempt to get some tips on cleaning up her hard drive and the very FIRST thing that showed up in the Google drop box was .... You guessed it, "why is my poop green." I'm dead serious. Try it if you don't believe me.

I am not yet sure why it is the first thing to come up. It is not the question with the most hits, nor is it alphabetically first in the "why is my ..." list. It is, however, probably the funniest; so I think someone who works for Google just has a great sense of humor (and maybe a mom like mine who wouldn't ever let her kids say the word "poop" while growing up.) Well, believe it or not, that's not the part that disturbs me. The truly horrifying thing is that the question, "why is my poop green," has 368,000 results. That's right, folks. THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT THOUSAND results. Gross. I haven't even decided what's grosser, the people asking the question? Or ... the people answering the question? What's grosser than gross? I'll tell you what's grosser than gross. Green poop, that's what.

Now, I have heard of a time not so long ago, in a galaxy not far away at all when it was considered crass and offensive and generally against all rules of proper etiquette to discuss topics such as passing gas, underclothing, and bowel movements in public. Even with your spouse or other members of your family. (This was not so much the protocol in my family, but that's a different story altogether.) My question is: How is it that we have moved as a society from not being able to look at a woman's bare ankle to discussing green poop with potentially 368,000 strangers? I understand that the internet offers people near-limitless anonymity. But, really people? You have access to any information that you want right at your fingertips, and you want to ask questions about the hue of your poo?? I don't get it. Do you not have a doctor? Do you not watch CSI and see that they can break into your hard drive and find any information you have ever accessed on-line even if it has been deleted and your computer has been irreparably damaged in a fire? Is that really how you want to be remembered if you are the victim of a grisly murder? As the person who was researching green poop? Sad, very sad.

Too much information, people. Too. Much. Information.

Zariah's Latest E-Mail

Just wanted to share today's e-mail from Z. It's kind of the same as the first one I got from her, except apparently she has since learned how to spell "going" but forgotten how to spell "to." Maybe she has reached a maximum capacity for correctly spelled words in her brain. Who knows? Oh well, maybe she can't spell, but check out the cool background. I'm not even sure how to do that. 

P.S. This e-mail was not sent exclusively to me, but rather to her entire address list. She stayed home sick today, but apparently is not feeling quite so bad anymore.

Cool. Osm. Wicid.

Back in my day, when you were 7 years old and wanted to write a note to your mom, you found paper, and a pencil, and if you wanted to make it colorful - crayons, stickers, and markers as well. Well, kids today apparently have too much to do in their busy lives to bother with the archaic methods of communication such as letter writing, what with piano lessons, Guitar Hero, Barbie.com, etc. Luckily, there is a solution to this problem. It's e-mail. That's right, e-mail.

About 2 weeks ago, Zariah asked me to please help her set up "that thing on the computer where you can send messages to people." I helped her set up her very own e-mail account that night on Yahoo. And I have to tell you, I don't think anyone in the history of the world checks their e-mail as frequently as Zariah did those first few days. No kidding.

Case in point: After a quick weekend trip to California about a week after she got her e-mail account, she woke up in the car at about 11:00 pm and started begging me to let her check her e-mail when we got home. We were still about an hour away from home and all I wanted to do when we got there was take my shoes off (optional) and go to bed (mandatory.) She begged, pleaded, implored, beseeched, cried, (insert synonym here) until I finally had to threaten to shut down her e-mail account if she asked me one more time. It kept her quiet, but she was anything but happy about it. It didn't matter that I tried to explain several times that anyone who would have sent her an e-mail was in the car with her or had just spent the weekend in California with her. She would not be appeased. As far as she was concerned I was ruining her life, possibly forever. (Yes, apparently another benefit to today's fast moving society is that you can start ruining your children's life at the ripe old age of 7, you don't have to wait until they are teenagers.) I think she may have finally forgiven me, but she is only slightly less anxious now about checking her e-mail than she was when she first got her account.

On a positive note, I get to come into work to the funniest, cutest, most colorful e-mail messages ever received. I don't think she has repeated the same font color or background color yet. I don't know who taught her how to do that, but she sure knows how. It is such a joy to be sifting through 23 business related e-mails and stumble upon a bright pink "GOOD MORNING MOMMY!" message from Zariah. The first day she got the account, my first message (in vivid light purple) was "Win are you gowing to send me an e-mail." Yes, I am more than a little amused that a girl who has trouble spelling "when" and "going" can apparently spell "e-mail" without a problem. However, it always brings a smile to my face to see an e-mail in my inbox from Zariah.

It's also a great medium for me to send messages to her like: I love you, and How was school, and Don't forget to practice the piano today. When she was out of school a couple of weeks ago, we were e-mailing back and forth and I asked her if she was excited to go to California, she replied back "Yes;" I asked her if she wanted to get started packing her suitcase, her reply was "NO!!" Simple, succinct, to the point. No beating around the bush for this girl. My all time favorite e-mail, so far, came this morning. It said (in lime green on a dark green background), "Hay What Up. Cool Osm Wicid." If you can't have a good day after an e-mail like that first thing in the morning, there's no hope for you.

So, if you get a minute and you really want to make someone's day, send a quick e-mail to zariahtracy@yahoo.com. There won't be a happier 7 year old in all the world. Truly. It would be Cool, Osm, AND Wicid.