Goals

Anyone who has spent any amount of time around Ned knows that one of the questions he will ask you constantly is "What are your goals for . . . [insert word here, i.e., this morning? this afternoon? this weekend?, etc.)]" It can be tiring. I usually ignore him while Bear will look at him with a blank stare. After he asks you what your goals are, he will ALWAYS proceed to tell you what his goals are. Today's goal: go to Roanoke and buy Christmas gifts.

So after Bear and I finished watching the Imagination Movers, we packed up to head to Roanoke. Can you guess what kind of restaurant we went to for lunch? If you guessed Mexican, you were right. If you guessed that Bear got a crunchy taco, you are obviously a faithful reader of this blog. We were in Roanoke for over six hours. Jack was a rock star; he was such a good boy. People constantly came up to us to tell us how cute he was and he would smile as if on cue. They would also compliment Bear and she would stare them down. As I told Ned, I don't see her winning the prize for Miss Congeniality. I was standing in the line at Stein Mart and Jack was sitting in the shopping cart. A lady told me that she could tell that Jack was really loved because of the way he acted. She referred to the fact that he would just smile and look around. I kept crossing my fingers that she wouldn't hear my daughter who was, at that moment, yelling in the men's department and pushing her shopping cart into the racks of clothes. What would she say about our parenting of Samantha?

Ned told me today that he had decided not to fight it anymore and that he was just going to love me for who I was and quit trying to get me to change. I didn't really know how to respond so I told him thanks.

I can't remember if this comment preceded or followed the fight we have so often about who is the smarter/more academic/more intellectual of the two of us. We had this fight (debate) tonight on the way home from Roanoke. This is an argument we have with some regularity so you've probably heard bits and pieces of it. We will usually start with some variation of the whole law school thing. I will remind Ned that he bombed the LSATs (twice) and couldn't get into law school at LSU. He will remind me that he was so hungover the first time he took it that he was in the bathroom for half the test. Then he will rub it in that I didn't get into law school at the University of Texas. And we will go on and on until we exhaust law school. Then he will remind me that he has a PhD. Then we get to the story about him bombing some test called the Miller Analogies Test (a test I've never heard of except from Ned. Apparently, you can take it instead of the GRE for some schools). I'm worried that we're not very sportsmanlike and a wee bit too competitive. Probably not a good example for the kids. Let me set the record straight right here: Ned is better than me at: swimming, golf, parking (usually), grilling, naming school mascots, and making small talk. I'm sure there are other things but I can't think of any right now. But I would blow him away on Law and Order trivia.

I'm glad Sam Bradford won the Heisman. I didn't really care if he or Colt McCoy won, I just didn't want Tim Tebow to repeat. Sorry, Urban. :(

Tomorrow is a huge day for the Skinners so I need to sign off. Plus, it's almost 11pm and my 4-year-old is still up.

Love,
Allie