Imagination

There's something magical about being 3. Emma's imagination has exploded and lately Emma has been taking a lot of trips. She's either a princess in a far away land, on a flight to Geneticut to see Grammy, at Tooey's pool in Virginia, or off on some other amazing adventure. This girl sure likes to travel!

This morning I had a delivery and asked Emma to bring the boxes downstairs after I unloaded them. After the third box she disappeared. Approximately 15 minutes later she runs up the stairs and yells, "All aboard, your train is getting ready to leave!!" Huh, what train? I went down to see that she had transformed the three boxes into a train complete with an engine, passenger car, and caboose. "Where are we going?" I asked. "Seattle! Hop in. Sit down!" she demanded. I got into the caboose and looked around. She had packed a lunch (crackers and juice), pretended to secure all of her babies into their imaginary seats with imaginary seat belts, she crawled into the engine, tooted her horn and off we went. Ahh, the wonders of childhood.

Adventures in Food

We've been lucky. Em is an eating machine. She will eat just about anything. When I hear my friend's adventures in picky toddlers, I sit quiet and am unable to offer any advise because my kid loves food.

Her favorites include: kale, spinach, capers, blue cheese (the stinkier the better), swiss chard, mushrooms, kalamata olives, balsamic vinegar, steak, salami, and collard greens.

Her least favorites include: eggs. She absolutely despises them. She still won't eat them in any form; scrambled, fried, poached. . . nada.

I'm pretty sure she gets her broad pallet from Brian. I'm not a very adventurous eater by any means and my list of dislikes is definitely a long one. Brian on the other hand claims he'll eat anything as long as it's not poisonous. Em definitely takes after him in this category.

On Sunday we went to the Aquarium and then had lunch at Anthony's. Brian ordered a mussel and clam dish and Em wanted a bite. Well, you know how this story goes. Em ate 1/2 of Brian's bivalves and then insisted we order her a dish of her own. Apparently bivalves need to get added to the love list. . . . who would have thought?

The blogging dilemma

So here I am 2 months after my last post facing the biggest blogging dilemma. . to post or not to post? Should I just give up?

I'm busy. I'm really, really busy.

I am a mom. A working mom raising her child at the store she's trying make successful.

I am a small business owner with two separate thriving businesses; the store and my collar business.

I have a household (or zoo) containing three dogs, 12 chickens, two fish tanks, a bird, a husband, and a child in which I'm primarily responsible for keeping alive.

I have a 35 year old body that needs some attention after three years of neglect.

I feel like I continuously try to squeeze 26 hours worth of stuff in 24 hours and have hit my breaking point.

Something has got to give. That something has been my free time. Time where I'm not picking up dog poop, chasing a child, sewing, running a shop, cooking, cleaning, walking dogs, being a taxi, etc etc etc. . . you get my point.

So the question is. . in the few rare moments that I have to myself, do I slip into a warm bubble bath with a glass of red wine (fantasizing here. . this never happens) or sit on an uncomfortable bar stool trying to think of something cute and witty to write about my day. . . or do I just go to bed and try to get sleep to recharge myself for the next day?

Then I start accessing my blog. I have very few followers. No one ever posts anything so is anyone even reading this crap?

I reach a decision. I'm okay with giving it up. Great!! It's one less thing I have to do. I don't have the time or energy and no one will miss it. Right?

Well. . . then I get an email from my mom, (hi mom) stating that my brother (hi Chad) wants to know why I'm not blogging anymore. . . hmmm. . . .

I guess that was the kick in the ass that I needed. I at least have two readers, right?

I realized that I have to take a new approach. Instead of worrying about my "story" and making this a witty replay of my child's existence I need to use this as a family album where Emma can look back and be utterly embarrassed that her mother posted X, Y, or Z about her into the world wide web for all to read. . . now that's inspiration!

So I vow to blog more. . .forgo that bottle of wine and bubble bath. . oops I mean glass. . . and I will post. . . .

With that . . .here's Suzie the Punk Rock Georgetown chicken. . a collaboration between Em and I (she did the head, I did the body) I think we have a future artist in the making. . .