Mystery Solved

For several weeks, maybe months, Kimmie has been telling us that she wants to go shopping for the "little girl green bat movie." Hmmm. Any guesses on what that might be? We were clueless! We weren't even sure it existed.

We took her to the Mall to the FYE store. She looked and looked and looked. This is where she always wants to go shopping, but it is very stressful. She looks and looks. Sometimes she will pick a movie, but keep looking. Then she will put the movie back and keep looking. She will wring her hands. She will fuss because she cannot find exactly what she wants. She will pick a movie we already have. When we tell her we are not buying it because we already have it, she fusses. We do not like taking her here, but it is her favorite store.

We took her to FYE, she did not find the "little girl green bat movie." We took her to Target, no luck. We took her to Walmart, no luck. We took her to Meijer, no luck. We took her to Toys-R-Us, no luck. We gave up on finding this movie. We thought it might be something she created in her imaginary world.

At some point we came to the understanding that it was a Scooby Doo DVD.

Kimmie wanted to go to the Mall after church one Wednesday evening. She really wanted to go. I did not promise her that we would go, but during the Bible study, she would look at me with this furrowed forehead and sign "Go Mall." I would sign back to her, "Kimmie be a good girl, a happy girl." Her face would light up and she would sign, "Yes." We went through this several times during the study.

My Mom was sitting behind us, as soon as the Bible study was over she asked me what I promised Kimmie. I tried to explain that I did not really promise her anything, BUT . . .

As I'm sure you guessed, we ended up at the Mall at FYE. Since we thought it might be a Scooby Doo movie, I directed her to those and she started looking through them. She was flipping the boxes two and three at a time. I slowed her down and started flipping them one at a time for her. All of a sudden she grabbed one of the movies, her face lit up and she started pointing to one of the characters on the box. I asked her if that was the movie, she signed yes.

I hurried her to the register to pay for it, and then hurried her out of the store before she changed her mind. She was very happy. She watched it as soon as we arrived home. She has been carrying the box around pointing at the characters pictured.

When I sat down in the car with Kimmie, I texted Daddy and told him, "WE FOUND THE MOVIE." He responded with, "Ok." I told him "Ok" was not the correct response, he was suppose to be very impressed!

"Little girl green bat movie" = Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School.

As soon as Dad and Bethany arrived home from church, they both had to know what the movie was. And then their response was, "Oh, yeah, I get it now, 'little girl green bat movie'." I don't, but that's ok. She watches cartoons all the time and I mostly tune them out, but the other family members know all the cartoons.

--Mom

Pictures

One of the projects I am working on now is scanning our pre-digital camera pictures into the computer. As I sort through our pictures and scan them, the one thing that has struck me and overwhelmed me is how thin Kimmie was for so very long.

I'm so glad she has filled out and looks healthy and strong today.

Kimmie was always thin as a child, but there was a spell where she gained some height but not really any weight.

There was also a year of school where her teacher would not let anyone help Kimmie with her lunch. Kimmie was stubborn and this made her mad. Every day she would throw her lunch on the floor because they would not help her. Since her food was gone, we did not realize she was not eating. We did not realize until later that this was happening.

That was a very difficult year for all of us as Kimmie spent a great deal of time screaming hysterically. I had not figured out yet that she screams for no apparent reason when she is hungry.

These two events occurred about the same time and as we watched Kimmie become thinner and thinner, we were very concerned. I talked to the doctor about it and he recommended that I talk to a nutricianist. He advised me to keep a food journal of everything Kimmie eats each day and the quantity.

I took Kimmie's food journal to the nutricianist and she calculated how many calories Kimmie consumed each day. She advised that Kimmie did not consume enough calories to support growth. Pretty scary! I asked her what she would recommend that I feed Kimmie so that she would be consuming more calories. Pediasure. We tried that. It has a smell that I associate with vitamins. Kimmie would not drink it. Peanut butter. We tried that. Kimmie cannot eat peanut butter. It is too thick and just gets stuck in her mouth. She does not have the oral motor dexterity required for thinning and moving peanut butter to the back of her mouth where she can swallow it.

We were able to supplement her milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast which added some extra calories. And we worked a lot harder at getting her to eat more and eat more frequently.

The fact that Kimmie has never been able to identify the feeling of hunger as hunger added to the problem as well.

Kimmie eats pretty good now and she has snacks in between, which helps her mood (unless her snack is OREOS!). We even sometimes have trouble buttoning Kimmie's jeans! Compared to those years she almost looks pudgy now. We laugh about that sometimes. It doesn't bother Kimmie. She wants to have a tummy like Pooh Bear!

--Mom

Panda Store

This past November Dad, Kimmie and I went on a trip to Florida to the beach. On our way home from Florida we made plans to stop at the zoo in Atlanta to see their panda bears. Kimmie was very excited about this.

We were able to see two adult pandas and a mother panda with a one year old baby. It was very cool. The baby was cute waddling around and working at climbing.

The panda exhibit is very cleverly laid out so that you cannot get in or out without passing the panda store. (They must have taken some cues from Disney.) Kimmie was overjoyed by the shelves of stuffed pandas. Dad was more panic stricken as he carefully manuevered her wheelchair just out of reach of the pandas so they didn't all end up on the floor.

I was more like Kimmie, I was in heaven thinking "Christmas presents!" They had panda t-shirts, panda DVDs, panda books, panda puzzles, panda mugs, panda key chains, panda playing cards . . .

We let Kimmie pick out a stuffed panda and I picked out a t-shirt for her. Then Dad took her out while I did the Christmas shopping. I made a big dent in my Christmas shopping for Kimmie that day . . . a panda t-shirt, a panda DVD, a panda book, a panda puzzle, a panda mug and panda playing cards. It was a gold mine!

--Mom

Assigned Seats

The other Saturday morning Kimmie slept until about 11:15. Shortly after she finished her breakfast, Dad and I sat down to eat lunch. Reed was still sleeping since he works nights. Bethany had already fixed herself some lunch and eaten it while Kimmie was having her breakfast, so it was just Dad and I eating lunch together.

At our house we have this peninsula counter with seating on both sides where the five of us can all sit to eat together. It also serves as a divide between the kitchen and the family room. Kimmie and I usually sit on the kitchen side of the counter and Dad, Reed and Bethany sit on the family room side, when we are all eating together. When just one or two are eating at the same time, we usually sit on the kitchen side.

On this particular Saturday, since it was just Dad and I eating, we sat side by side on the kitchen side where Kimmie and I usually sit. While we were eating, Kimmie started fussing in the family room. We asked her different questions trying to discover what was aggitating her, but to no avail. Finally I asked her if she was upset because Daddy was sitting in her chair. She stopped fussing and shook her head yes.

By this time we were almost finished eating. As soon as Dad vacated Kimmie's chair, she rushed out to the kitchen and plopped herself in it.

Since Dad was needing to do some work using his work laptop, he asked Kimmie if he could sit next to her in Mommy's chair while he worked. No! She pointed across the table to his chair.

Dad declared that she was getting very bossy! She does like to call the shots.

--Mom

Quilt Show

Last year I took the girls to a quilt show. A while back Bethany had said that she would like to go to one.

Dad had to work, so it was just the girls and me. My first overnight trip out of town with no other adults to help with Kimmie. Bethany was 16 at the time, and good help, but not quite the comfort that another adult provides. My main concern was driving in a strange city, checking into a downtown hotel with Kimmie and all her "stuff", and parking the car.

We had a very nice trip and it all worked out well. The valet attendants were extremely accommodating.

To make the trip more enjoyable for the girls we also went to a children's museum, a natural history museum, an aquarium and a mall--so Kimmie could get her shopping fix!

We went to the quilt show twice. It was not Kimmie's favorite thing. The first time we went Kimmie was tired since it was after the children's museum and the natural history museum. She did not like me stopping to look at anything. After a while I offered her a piece of fabric that I had purchased. She snatched that fabric and started wrapping Brown Bear up in it. Brown Bear spent the rest of the trip wrapped up like a baby doll.

The second time we went to the show, Bethany had stopped at a vendor booth to look around. I found a place to park Kimmie's wheelchair so we could wait on her. As I looked at the booth where Bethany was, I decided there was space for me to push Kimmie over there to look. I carefully parked Kimmie's wheelchair in a spot where I thought she would not be able to reach anything. She is notorious for unfoldng things, unwinding things, ripping tags off, and tearing labels and stickers off. I kept one eye on Kimmie while I looked. She was leaning and stretching trying to reach something. While I was moving her so she was just out of reach of everything, the man operating the booth rushed over and asked if she likes flannel. I was stammering around trying to figure out how to answer him when he handed Kimmie a flannel fat-quarter piece of fabric. Kimmie snatched it up, grabbed her little panda bear and started wrapping it up. I finished my looking and headed to check out before she became too grabby again. As I was checking out the man asked me what her favorite color was. I told him she likes blues and greens best. He reached under his table, came up with a stack of flannel fat-quarters, pulled a blue one out of the stack and handed it to Kimmie. I told the man repeatedly that I would pay for the fabrics Kimmie had, but he wouldn't hear of it. Kimmie had another little panda bear along for the ride, so she located it and wrapped him up.

I paid for my items and moved her out of there. We went back across the way to wait on Bethany. When Bethany was finished making her purchases, she came over to us laughing. Kimmie was sitting there in her wheelchair with a baby panda wrapped in a pink blanket in one arm and a baby panda wrapped in a blue blanket in the other arm. Bethany said that it looked like Kimmie had twins, a girl and a boy. Bethany also said that the man at the booth was telling her how cute her sister was.

Kimmie made a new friend.

She held those bears, one in each arm, for a long time. It kept her happy for a good while.

After our trip, every morning as we were preparing to leave for school, Kimmie would have to pick which blanket her little panda bear was going to be wrapped in that day, and I would have to wrap him up just right for Kimmie. This went on for several weeks. I'm not sure what her teacher thought of this, but, oh well, it's Kimmie.

She still has her little blankets. Sometimes she will get one and wrap something up. Usually she gets frustrated and I have to wrap it for her. Nobody else can wrap it just right for Kimmie. I wrap it really tight and tuck the ends in so that it doesn't fall off without a lot of tugging.

Kimmie may be 20, but she's still a lot like a 3- or 4-year old.

--Mom

P.S. She never did like dolls. Her bears were always her "dolls."