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."