My Little Monkey

I came home from work the other day and Kimmie was sitting at the table in the kitchen. She looked up at me. She had black crumbs all around her mouth. I said to her, "Have you been eating Oreos?" She grinned and shook her head, "Yes."

She does love Oreos.

--Mom

My Little Collector

Kimmie never likes going to the dentist, although she does hug and hug and hug all over the dentist.

But the part she likes the most is the treasure box. For a while she was collecting plastic ducks for her bath, but now she has started collecting bouncy balls. And of course one is never enough, she has to have one for each hand. So when she went to the dentist this week she came home with two more bouncy balls.

Of course, after all the crying and the screaming and the hugging, everyone feels so sorry for her that they would just about give her the moon. Two bouncy balls, no problem.

--Mom

Trauma at the Dentist

Kimmie went to the dentist yesterday afternoon. Always a traumatic experience. She doesn't fight as hard as she used to, but she does cry and scream and wiggle a lot.

She looked like she had been in a fight the rest of the evening. Her lips and cheeks were puffy with red blotchy spots on them. She never eats well after the dentist, and yesterday was no exception. She ate maybe 4 or 5 bites of supper. We tried to get her to drink instant breakfast to give her some calories. But even drinking seemed to be a problem.

Poor little girl. It always seems like she has to endure so much more than her share of problems.

--Mom

Kimmie's Laughing

Kimmie's laughing. It's such a happy sound.

Last Saturday I was taking my other daughter someplace and we were driving a way we have not gone in a while. We approached a stop light on the green cycle at an intersection with a little hump in the middle. It's a fun intersection to go through a little fast on the green because the hump in the middle gives you that "whoosh" feeling.

Kimmie always loved going through that light on the green and feeling the "whoosh." She would laugh. I told her sister on Saturday when we were laughing that I could hear Kimmie laughing in my head even though she was not with us. And see her signing, "funny slide, funny slide."

We'll have to go that way soon so Kimmie can laugh as we bounce over the hump.

--Mom

School Dance

Kimmie has been having happy days at school. Yeah!

Yesterday at school she did a hula dance, her air guitar dance and she pretended to be a soldier (she likes to salute).

And she danced on the bus again.

What fun!

--Mom

School

School started this week.

Kimmie had a good first day. She even danced on the bus.

The second day she danced for them at school, but she threw her glasses on the bus. Little stinker.

Her sister's response to the first day of school, "School was awesome!"

--Mom

School Registration

I took Kimmie to school this week for registration. She received her schedule. We paid her class fees. Then she had her picture taken for her school ID.

It was a rather entertaining activity.

We had been telling her that we would be going, but she would repeatedly sign "No." I picked her up at home, loaded her in the car and off we went. When we arrived at school, she sat in the car signing "no, no, no" and refused to unfasten her seat belt or get out of the car. After I promised to take her back home afterwards, she calmed down and climbed out of the car.

When we entered the school she insisted on clutching my arm, hiding her face, and then she giggled. She wanted to go in the office, but when she looked in there, whoever she wanted to see wasn't there so she finally walked on with me to the cafeteria, clutching my arm and half hiding.

When we entered the cafeteria there were tables around in a semi-circle with different letters of the alphabet on them. Two people, mostly women, sat behind each table. There weren't too many in there registering, so the folks behind the tables were mostly sitting, looking around, waiting.

They were mostly sitting there with ho-hum kind of faces, until we came along. As we walked across the cafeteria and they spotted Kimmie, one by one their faces lit up with a smile. I guess that's the effect Kimmie has on people. She makes them smile.

We took care of the paperwork and then went across the hall for the picture. We had to wait behind a couple other students. Kimmie was pretty good. She decided to pretend she was playing baseball and she assumed her batting stance, complete with "digging your foot into the dirt" motion. One of the women from the office was helping with the ID cards. I knew she was one of Kimmie's buddies so I asked Kimmie if she wanted to say "Hi" to her. No, Kimmie was too busy "batting." As we moved up in the line and were closer to the woman from the office, Kimmie spotted her and over she ran with her arms out. This lady was pretty smart. She jumped up and went around the table so she could get a good Kimmie hug. And it was a good one, a double hug. One around the waist and one around the neck, with a really good squeeze.

Registration was actually kinda fun, watching everyone's reaction to Kimmie.

--Mom

Vacation and Another Friend

Last week we were on vacation. The first evening we stopped at a restaurant to eat. Kimmie was sitting at the end of the table where the waitress stood to take our order.

It wasn't long before Kimmie was hugging her. When Kimmie finally let go the waitress started telling us about her brother being autistic.

After she walked away, Daddy just looked at me and said, "That's another one, another life she touched."

I said, "Yes, Kimmie made another friend."

--Mom

Kimmie's Birthday Celebration

I'm very behind on my stories. It's already August and I haven't even written about Kimmie's birthday celebration.

Since Kimmie's sister was going to be gone to camp on Kimmie's birthday, we celebrated early. We told Kimmie when we were going to celebrate her birthday about a week before and boy was she ready.

Not normally a morning person, Kimmie was up at 6:20 am. We weren't celebrating until evening, so she had a long day of waiting. Fortunately she was pretty good about it. She signed repeatedly "Grandma Grandpa over." I reminded her that they weren't coming over until evening. She was amazingly patient.

It did start to get the best of her when she could see the presents, but she had to wait for us to all finish our cake and ice cream. We all knew that she'd been waiting a long time, so we gulped down the cake and ice cream to get to the important part -- presents.

She was very excited. One of her new loves, this summer, is Teen Titans. One present was Season One of Teen Titans. She has been carrying it around and sleeping with it ever since. (Well, when she can convince Daddy that she needs to take it to bed with her.) She doesn't ask to watch it very often, but she keeps the movie box close by. Sometimes she cries in the night and we have to find it for her.

She is enjoying her new books and toys.

It won't be long before she starts talking about Christmas.

--Mom