A Day's Adventures

This morning, Peeper and I joined our MOMS Club buddies for a craft, led by T. The big kids made advent calendars using bubble wrap, and the little ones made ones with a clean-shaven Santa, onto which we'll glue cotton balls each day, to build his beard.

Because she is a genius, she began by giving the kids (and moms) scraps of bubble wrap and letting them us pop as much as we wanted, before she handed out the carefully cut-out pieces for the calendars.

Then we got to work. No photos of Peeper actually doing the project, because I was busy helping her, but here's the final product.

Then we came home, had some lunch, watched a roofer take measurements for an estimate, and finally got ourselves ready and out the door for some shopping.

First we hit a consignment shop, where Shrike got a couple of pairs of jeans, I got a winter coat and Peeper got an adorable snowman sweater, a cute Christmasy turtleneck and a couple of Christmasy, but not exclusively Christmasy dresses.

They are nice, but didn't quite match up to my fantasy of her all dressed up for the Nutcracker, or for church on Christmas Eve.

After that, we went out to dinner, and over to Target to pick up a few things that we had coupons for, and then forget to use the coupons. Ack!

While we were there (on the complete opposite side of the store, of course) Peeper told us, "I need to pee-pee!"

This is the first time that she has actually said that, completely unprompted, so there was much celebration - and running to the bathroom.

She had already gotten four stickers for making progress toward this major milestone, the most recent of which was earlier today when she was trying to come in the bathroom while I was using it. I asked "Are you trying to get in because you need to pee-pee?" and she said yes. Maybe, maybe not, but she did pee, so that counts.

She's now two stickers away from getting her Nutcracker DVD, and has just now actually accomplished the skill that we are supposedly stickering for, but I figure it's like how when you're training a dog to do a trick, and you start by giving a treat when he comes anywhere near what you want, then require more and more as he gets better at it and starts figuring out what it is that you're looking for.

I want to reward her for progress in the right direction, and I want her to be successful with this. I think it would be very counterproductive if it took her several days to get any stickers. I think she'd just figure she's never going to see the DVD and blow it off.

Speaking of the DVD, it shipped on Friday or Saturday from the town where I was working right before Peeper was born. I made the drive in forty-five minutes every day. Don't know why it's not here yet. It had better hurry, because she's going to expect to pop it in the player as soon as that last sticker hits the paper!

I think that after we give it to her, I'll make another chart, and come up with another prize (probably something that we've already actually bought for Christmas) and have her get ten or twelve stickers to earn it.

Hopefully by then, she'll have it down. More or less.

While I took her in to the bathroom, Shrike was waiting outside with the cart, so when she was finished, she ran out to tell Mommy that she'd pee-peed. She was running, full-tilt (in the wrong direction), when she tripped over something and went flying.

Within about one second, I went through, "Oh no, she's falling!" to "Oh, she's landed and seems to have caught herself, whew!" to "Oh shit" and I heard her head go "thud" on the floor.

Luckily, she was right by the entrance, the only carpeted part of the entire store, so it was a little better than it could have been, but she smacked it pretty good, and cried for a few minutes, and it was bruising before we even got her settled down enough to start heading over to check out.

This is my excuse for forgetting about the coupons. I'm not too worried about them, though. They don't expire until the 26th and I'm quite sure we'll be buying more cereal and Hershey Kisses before then.

After we checked out, we turned in our cart cup holders (does your Target have these?) to Starbucks and got some ice for her head. She put it on there for about two seconds and said, "Oh, my head feels much better now!"

After Target, we headed over to Kohl's, because I thought maybe they'd have some Christmas dresses on sale. Indeed, they did.

The one we bought was 40% off, and still about $30, but it definitely matches up with my fantasy. I can't wait to see her in on Saturday, for The Nutcracker.

She'll definitely wear it for that and for church on Christmas Eve, but I'm debating whether to put her in it for every slightly formal occasion over the next month - visit with Santa, singing at the retirement home, etc - to be sure we get our money's worth, or to let her wear the consignment dresses some, since we did pay a few bucks for them, too. (Like $4 and $3.50, I think.)


While we were at Kohl's, we had to stop and look at the big display of nutcrackers, and Peeper especially liked these two guys.

Then home and pretty much straight to bed. It was a big day.