Not bad, not great

Today wasn't a bad day by any means but not the best day I've ever had with my daughter.

Had to have two talks with her today. One concerned the dog, which actually occurred twice in the same day. The other concerned soup.

Where the dog was concerned, it was because she rarely plays with the dog. I ultimately told her I was going to give the dog away if she doesn't start playing with the dog more.

Much of this started for me because I was not really happy with the dog today. First thing this morning, found the dog had chewed up a new toy daughter brought over from the ex's. The toy had been not only on the garden side of the fence but on top of the picnic table. Of course, there's the digging in the garden problem. Found 2 or 3 places where she had been digging today. Another issue is that I highly prefer keeping her "marked terrritory" limited and at a distance from the cultivated and landscaped areas. Flowers and melons will not be so attractive with piles of dog crap between them.

Last part of that is attention. Since daughter isn't playing with the dog, the dog feels insecure while she's here. The more attention I give to one of them, the more the other wants. It's seriously irritating me. My daughter makes believe she's an animal or she makes up a pretend pet and seeks attention in that way, while ignoring the dog who wants to play. Needless to say, this cycle has to end.

Other subject was soup. Daughter keeps talking about making soup, wanting me to buy vegetables and ingredients to make soup with. On a couple of occasions, I've done this. Problem is that she doesn't eat the soup. Today we talked about what she wanted for lunch and she said she wanted to make soup. I can't (and won't) buy food to make soup which will only be thrown away. We've had this discussion but had it once more. She promised to eat the soup if we made it. We got the stuff for soup. Later, she ate some of the soup but not much. It's a start.

She's doing even better with jumping rope. I'm amazed she could even walk today with as much jumping rope as she did yesterday. Today, she was still at it.

We played frisbee for a while this afternoon. That was fun and she's getting better at that, also. I still do a lot of walking to retrieve the frisbee.

We planted the corn out which I had started inside. Then planted the new package of strawberries. I'd dig the hole, she placed the plant inside and I covered it back up.

Not much else going on. I turned the soup into jambalaya for dinner. Eat and get to bed in a while.