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

Kimmie's 20th Birthday

Kimmie turned 20 this past Saturday. I think she would agree that she had a very nice birthday.

Her birthday celebration started on Friday when the day program had a birthday cake for her.

With "Big Sister" leaving for camp on her birthday, we also celebrated on Friday. She told us she wanted a chocolate cake with sprinkles, so that's what we had. I didn't buy any sprinkles because I thought I already had some; however, all I could find were Christmas sprinkles. Kimmie didn't care. It was a chocolate cake with sprinkles. She was happy.

For several weeks she had been getting in the cupboard and getting out the number candles that we have from previous birthdays; 18. She knew she was going to be 20, so we are not sure why she was getting out the 18. We decided she wanted those kind of candles for her cake. So we had a 2 and 0 for her cake.

Kimmie has gradually done better with the birthdays. She waited patiently through her sister's birthday and her brother's birthday and did not try to make them her birthday. She even waited patiently for everyone to finish their cake, because, of course, the most important part of her birthday is the presents!

Thanks to the dollar store and some finds in Michaels dollar bins, Kimmie had lots of gifts to open which made her very happy. She seemed to like and play with everything she received.

On Saturday, Kimmie's birthday, we dropped Bethany off to leave for camp and then took Kimmie to one of her favorite places, the M-A-L-L. She tells me every day that she wants to go shopping at the M-A-L-L. She doesn't actually want to go shopping at the mall, she wants to go shopping at FYE at the mall to add to her movie collection.

After she picked out a new DVD, we took her to see the new Pooh movie. Kimmie sat on the edge of her seat with a big smile on her face through the entire movie. Well, she did grab me and hang on during a scene when Piglet was scared. But she did enjoy it and we practically had to drag her out of the theater.

We went home, she put on her new Eeyore pajamas and watched her new DVD. The one she bought at the M-A-L-L and held through the entire Pooh movie.

Happy 20th Birthday, Kimmie!

The next day she was in the cupboard and came out with the 2 and the 1 candles. She laid them on the table, 21. She's ready for next year already!

--Mom

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

A while back Kimmie took a liking to the Scooby-Doo series “A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.” She picked out one of the DVDs and carried it home. She loves to carry this DVD box around, point at Shaggy and sign, “boy Shaggy.” She loves it so much that we bought a couple more of the DVDs.

A few weeks later I was at Target with her. We were looking through the movies and she picked this “Pup Named Scooby-Doo” one. I looked at the box, decided we didn’t already have it, and so I let her buy it along with a new pair of shoestrings.

On the way home Kimmie was working on opening her new pair of shoestrings and didn’t get around to opening her new movie. When we arrived home, I looked in the DVD cabinet to make sure we didn’t already have this movie . . . well, there it was. We already had it. I quickly pulled out the movie from our cabinet, gave it to Kimmie, and hid the new one so I could return it to the store.

The next week, Dad took Kimmie shopping with him. When he came home with her, he reached in a bag and pulled out a new movie he had let her buy. He says, “We don’t have this one do we?” It was the same “Pup Named Scooby-Doo” movie, in the red box, that I had just returned to the store two days earlier! Bethany and I immediately said, “Yes, we have that one.” Again we gave Kimmie our movie, so we could return the unopened one.

I hope the store doesn’t have some way of tracking WHO buys and returns items, because I’m sure they would think we were crazy to be buying and returning the exact same movie multiple times in a two week period.

--Mom

Movie Collection

I’ve talked about Kimmie’s propensity to be a collector. I’ve told you about her Care Bear collection and Star Wars sword collection, but I don’t think I’ve told you about her biggest collection—MOVIES.

Kimmie loves to buy DVDs. Kimmie loves to shop and whenever we go shopping she thinks she has to buy a movie. Unfortunately, she has so many movies that we often have trouble finding one she doesn’t already own.

Kimmie always wants to be the one to choose which movie to buy, but she will often pick something that we already have at home. This creates A LOT of drama. When we tell her we already have that movie, she simply doesn’t understand and cries when we won’t let her buy it. We don’t know if she thinks it is her movie that is somehow at the store instead of at home or what? It seems to be one of those reasoning things that she can’t quite understand.

When we buy a movie, she usually opens it in the car on the way home. She likes to open the box and see the round disk inside. And she likes the disk to be straight up and down, lined up just right in the box. She fixes it that way if it is not.

Now, when we get home, she may or may not watch the movie. Sometimes she just wants to look at the pictures on the box. Sometimes she will simply carry the box around, look at the pictures, point at them and talk about them.

She will often open the DVD cabinet and sit in front of it, pulling out boxes, looking at the pictures and talking to herself.

She’s a funny girl.

--Mom

Dancing with Pooh Bear

In general, Kimmie likes "boy" movies like Aladdin, Ben10, Danny Phantom, Batman, and Superman, but now and then we override her choices and put in a more "girly" movie.

This week big sister reintroduced Kimmie to the movie Anastasia. Surprisingly, Kimmie has asked to watch it three more times.

The cutest part is when Anastasia is imagining a dance in a large ballroom. Kimmie always gets her biggest Pooh Bear, holds him in a dance pose, and then dances around the room. It's really cute.

Yesterday she was doing that when we had a guest at our house. There were lots of "aahh"s.

--Mom