Wednesday, March 05, 2008

It's All in the Hairstyle and other Lizard Stories

I am leaving the date the way it is as this was the day that I actually started writing this.

I'm learning that it's all in the hairstyle. It's not as much about the leotard, the warm-up or even the walk. It'a all in the hairstyle. The sparkles, the glitter, the crazy designs made in their heads. I only let my darling daughter do this once and a while as the tiny elastics pull out the hairs around her face. But I gave in for this one special meet.

Now that comeptition season is over, she is banned from these designs in her head. I have to give her fine hair a chance to grow back out so we can do it all again in October when she starts competing again.

And on to our next story . . .

One of the fun things we do when we are in Florida is to catch lizards from my dad's pool area and bring them back out into the grass. We get to do this often as the little guys are everywhere!! This past visit, there was a little anole lizard on the concrete surrounding my dad's pool. I called the kids attention to it and we all gathered around to get as close as we could before it ran off. Well, it just sat there and looked at us. I asked Olivia to pick it up and bring it out to the grass. But when she picked it up, it just sat there in her hands and made no attempt to escape.

Everyone got a chance to hold it and besides running up our arms or our hands, it never tried to jump away or even bite us. Immediately, Olivia fell in love with this little guy and started begging me to keep it. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to my daughter. I said that he would be happier there in Florida and that we should give him a chance to make a run for it. So, we brought him outside to the grass to let him go. Even there, he just sat in her hands.

After a while and several attempts at putting the lizard in the grass to which he just sat there and didn't run away, I decided to put him in a little container until I could talk with the kids Grammy Pammy, a lover of all things small, to decide if it was even possible to keep a lizard up norh. Well, we have a new pet now. Olivia decided to name him Immokalee after a city in Florida. The lizard didn't cost us a thing but his northern home, well, that's another story.

Immokalee's Northern Home