Overheard the following while Sarah was watching Hannah Montana that starred Dolly Parton in a guest role...

The storyline had Hannah preparing to attend an awards ceremony and she just asked her grandma if she should wear sparkly nailpolish, to which her grandma (played by Vicki Lawrence) tells Miley to paint her nails with the plain polish as sparkly polish comes off as trashy.

That's when Dolly's character walks into the room and loudly announces, "Just look at my sparkly nails!"

That's when Sarah piped up, "Nails!?!  Just look at her boobs!"

I have a big picture calendar that I use to keep track of the daily activities for the week.  I think most moms have something like this.  A calendar that features gorgeous brightly colored pictures of some exotic locale while the little date boxes are filled with days off of school, doctor's appointments and playdates.

I'm the only one who really writes anything on it.  Garrett will use it to check to see what's on my agenda because sometimes he asks me to run specials errands or whatnot, so he checks the calendar before he asks.  He knows not to ask for something special if he sees it's loaded full of kids names and times, that's just a clear indication that I will be busy and possibly stark raving mad by the day's end.  He's no fool, so he uses the calendar wisely.

Since most of the stuff on my calendar pertains to Sarah and her activities, she has now taken an interest in scanning the calendar on a daily basis.  I swear her learning to read has been such a blessing and a curse.

"MOM!  I have a playdate with Cole today!?!"

"MOM!  I HAVE A DOCTORS APPOINTMENT!?!  WHICH DOCTOR!?!  DO I HAVE TO GET A SHOT!?!  ARE THEY GONNA TAKE BLOOD!?!  WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!?!  I FEEL FINE!?!"

"NO SCHOOL TOMORROW, YAY!!!"

"Mom, you have nothing on the calendar tomorrow.  What are we going to do?"

So, like I said, she's taken an interest in the calendar now and she'll check it daily but she hasn't showed any interest in recording or documenting anything herself, until now.

The other day I pulled down my calendar to write a couple of things down and I noticed that someone had written in a very light scrawl the word "yes" on two different days.  I was mystified.  I know I've been forgetting a lot of things lately but I couldn't for the life of me remember ever writing those "yes's" on the calendar.  So, I think, maybe Garrett wrote them in, but what would he have meant by it?  I sat there staring at those "yes's" and the dates, trying to make sense of who wrote them and why when it all became suddenly clear.

At the top of each of those dates I had already written something, on the first box was written "Half Day" and on the second box was written "No School".  Sarah wrote those "yes's".  She must have looked at the calendar at the beginning of the week and noticed the half day of school and no school day coming up and made her feelings known.

"YES!"

This whole Mindsay Reunion thingy that's been going around has made me think about my blogs.  Despite my current lack of activity, I have generally remained active on my own blog, but on Sarah's blog there have been a lot of ebbs and flows...if such a phrase exists.

When I started Sarah's blog, I really wrote it in the fashion of keeping a private journal.  I honestly didn't expect anyone but a few family members to read it.  There was a kind of openness, a freedom even, that I wrote with back then because I did use Sarah's blog almost like a journal.  A journal of being a stay-at-home mom and my trials and tribulations with my little girl, my smart funny crazy little girl.  When, over time, I came to realize that not only did close family members read Sarah's blog, but sometimes complete strangers read it and actually enjoyed it, well to be honest, that left me stunned, and I have to admit I did change the way I wrote because of that realization.  I'm conscious of that change now but back then I really didn't realize I had changed my writing style. 

I still wrote about Sarah, and her crazy antics and my day to day life of being a stay-at-home-mom, but I moved away from some of the "inner"dialogue that I had with myself to focusing more on Sarah, just Sarah. 

Over time, I've lost most of my "audience", which is fine because I didn't start this blog to have a following, I started it for my daughter.  I started it so my family could feel a bond, a closeness to her that we're unable to have because of the physical distance we have to endure.  I started it for Sarah so she could have some record of her early years since I wasn't the picture taking kind of mom and certainly not the scrapbooking type of mom.  I started it for my daughter as something that she could have for the rest of her life to look back on and be proud that she was such an amazing kid and that I loved her with all of my heart and soul. 

So, I need to make some changes.  I need to keep in mind why I started this blog and who it was for, it's for Sarah.  It's for Sarah to know how even the most mundane and silly things she did or said brought me such unimaginable joy or sometimes heartbreaking pain.  Sarah's not a perfect kid, and I don't want her to be.  If one glances back on the entries of this past year, she seems so average, almost bland, she's not.  She's dynamic, and headstrong, unbelievably sharp and witty at times and then sometimes heartbreakingly immature and difficult.  She's a child.  She is exactly who she is suppose to be, and I need to be writing about her exactly as she is, good and bad.

The week before Noni and Pops arrived Sarah asked me who taught me how to drive.  I told her that Noni had taught me and that she was a great teacher, very patient and kind.  Sarah's reply was something like, "Yeah, Noni must be a great teacher because you're a pretty good driver mom."  I thanked her for her compliment and the subject was closed, or so I thought.

This past week Noni and Pops have been visiting us.  One day Sarah, Noni and I were going out and as we piled into my van, Sarah turned to Noni and said, "Noni, my mom told me that you were the one who taught her how to drive."  Noni smiled and said, "I sure did!"

Then it was Sarah's turn to smile and she said in reply, "Well you did a great job Noni!  Were you also the one who taught her how to yell at people and say mean things to them?"

 *sigh* Sarah says the darndest things. 

Or, maybe I should make that too much of a smartass for her own good.  These are the latest Sarahisms of the week.

Sarah had to get new glasses.  Her prescription changed and she needed stronger lenses.  Unfortunately, it appears that Sarah has fully inherited the poor vision DNA from her father and I.  So, she went for her annual exam and she was in desperate need of new glasses.  It was so bad that she kept cleaning her glasses so she could see and she couldn't understand why cleaning her glasses wasn't making a difference in her vision, haha.  Of course, we didn't know she was doing this or she had probems seeing until after her exam was done.

Anyway, she has new glasses now and she was really excited because we got her the transition lenses that tint dark in the sunlight.  She was BEYOND excited.  Unfortunately, she had to wait to "test" her transition lenses until the morning because it was already dark out when we picked up her glasses. 

Sure enough she bounced out of bed and got herself ready and then realized she could check out her new transition lenses.  My sister Lena, whose here helping me recover from surgery, opened the front door to check out the weather and Sarah ran outside.  Lena watched her as she ran around and then heard her say, "What a rip!"

Lena laughed and asked her why she said that, Sarah said the transition lenses didn't work and we were ripped off.  LOL!

The lenses do work, we did not get ripped off.  She was just expecting them to get very dark and they just aren't meant to do that, so she knows that now and she's ok with how they work.

If that wasn't entertaining enough for you we also have what she said to me this morning.  Having just had my gallbladder removed I am still recovering in body and mind, so I was slower than usual this morning.  My sister asked me a question and I gave her the completely wrong answer, to which I said, "I'm sorry.  I just can't think this morning."

Sarah was walking past and her me and decided to put her two cents in, "That's because you had surgery and they must have removed your brain too."  This made Lena laugh, and she said to Sarah, "If they took out her brain how can she be alive?"

Without missing a beat Sarah replied, "She still has her heart and that's keeping her alive."

And that's Biology 101 with Sarah!