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Home › Diaries › Katrina › Introduction

Katrina's Diary Entries

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Introduction

December 14, 2002

Only 11 days until Christmas. All my shopping is done, most of the presents are wrapped. The packages and Christmas cards have been mailed. It’s nice to sit back and relax.
I thought Virginia wasn’t going to understand Christmas this year (the Santa part of it)…..but just the other day she said Santa when she saw him at the mall. However, she is afraid of him and doesn’t want anything to do with him. Now Christmas trees…that’s completely different. She is fascinated with ours (fake) and she is constantly re-arranging ornaments (I finally stopped putting them back after she’s down for the night).

A Birthday party
We went to a 2-year-old birthday party this last Saturday. That morning I wrapped up the birthday boy’s presents with Virginia. Let’s just say that sharing is not her best quality. She did not want to wrap the presents she wanted to play with them. So as best as I could, I explained that these presents were for the birthday boy….not for her and to remember that he gave her presents on her 2nd birthday. She just stared at me…obviously not understanding, or not caring (I’m not sure which). But I figured out that she was content to cutting up left over wrapping paper while I finished up. I need to remind myself to get her a pair of safety scissors. She was really careful with my scissors, but I don’t want any accidents to happen. So onto the birthday party. I thought she was going to have a rough time seeing someone else get presents, but she was so in love with the birthday boy’s little sister (who is 6 weeks old), that I’m not sure she even noticed we were at a party. That is until it was time for cake. Okay, so I am not trying to be mean or anything with this next part, but: Who has a 2-year-old birthday party from 11 am to 1 pm and doesn’t serve lunch? I thought that was ridiculous….and I wasn’t expecting anything more than PB&J sandwiches. Karl and I can make it without lunch….but Virginia can’t. So at 12:30 we are sitting down to cake. I give Virginia a ¼ of a slice, when we were finished I left to gather our things. I hear her ask for more cake, and just as they were putting a huge slice in front of her I walked back into the room. Luckily I was able to take it away from her without any tears (from either of us!). So we promptly left to go get lunch (after being questioned why we were leaving early….HELLO starving child that doesn’t need to fill up on cake or soda…yes, they served soda….luckily we had our sippy cup of water/juice with us….my daughter’s lips have never touched soda…and that’s not going to change any time soon!). However, Virginia fell asleep on the way home first. She took a decent nap, but was of course starving (and upset) when she woke up. Now we are friends with the parents who hosted the party. We love them, they are great…..but what were they thinking?

Potty Training
Still not happening. Should I start putting Virginia in pull-ups instead of diapers? I have no idea what to do here. She hasn’t shown much interest. Maybe I’ll try the pull-ups thing….and maybe I’ll set the potty in the living room so she doesn’t have to walk far from her toys…. I would love for her to be out of diapers…but I don’t want to press the issue. I don’t want her to think she is failing, so I guess I’ll wait for her cue.

Christmas
Last night we celebrated with Karl’s best friends family. They have 2 children, their youngest is 2 months younger than Virginia. Virginia was absolutely great last night….she handed out the presents and loved watching everyone else open theirs (I was shocked!). She received a new baby and just loved it. She didn’t want to share with her buddy, but eventually she let Will play with the doll. That was so nice to see….SHARING! yahoo!
We will celebrate Christmas with Karl’s family tomorrow. I know Virginia is getting another baby doll, and the new leapfrog scanning grocery cart. I’m sure she will have a blast tomorrow. Her cousins are 12 and 16, and they all love playing together (it’s nice for Karl and I to have a break). We will celebrate Christmas with my family this year. I’m hoping for SNOW in Wisconsin.
We decided to give Virginia her new dollhouse bookcase early. Karl put it together last Saturday and she really loves to play with it. Karl anchored it to the wall (it’s about 4 ½ feet tall) because I was afraid Virginia would try and climb it and knock it over (it weighs 70 pounds). It’s very cute in her room ….she has the John Lennon Real Love nursery theme. The walls are painted a faint yellow and the new bookcase is white with pastel pink trim. It just feels like such a girls room now. We had originally thought that when we had a 2nd child they would share a room, but now we are thinking Virginia will move to the guest bedroom and we will create a big girl room for her and the nursery would stay a nursery. And then eventually they could share a room, if so desired, wanted, or needed. The “plan” is in place, now I just need to get pregnant.

Growing up
So what can Virginia do? She knows her alphabet and even knows that A is for Apple, B is for Banana, C is for Cookie, and I is for Ice cream (sense a trend here?). She can count to 20 (although 11 and 12 are hard for her)…and not just say the numbers, she can count how many cheerios, pretzels, coins, etc she has. She is really good at drawing faces. Loves to paint (and makes a huge mess), loves play-doh. And role playing: like pretending she is a cat or dog in the store and having to crawl around on the floor (that usually gets laughs). Or pretending she is a baby, so I have to carry her like I’m cradling a newborn (cute, but my gosh does 32 pounds get heavy quick!). She loves trying to dress/undress her cabbage patch kids (my dolls from when I was a kid). And doing jigsaw puzzles….she is really good at those (I’m horrible at those).

Hark, the Herald angel sings
Yep, Virginia is the angel. My pumpkin loves to sing….and she can carry a tune. Have a mentioned she also thinks that Pumpkin is her name???? How funny.

I’ll try to post again before Christmas…..if not I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and remembers the reason behind the season.

Love,
Katrina and Virginia

Ps…must share a funny story. We got up at 5 am this morning so we could be in Downtown Dallas by 6:15am to volunteer at the White Rock Lake Marathon (handing out water). So we got there at 6:20 and NO one is there. We wait and wait. I finally ask Karl for the map…he said he left it at home because he knew EXACTLY where we were going. At this point I am doubting him (since no one else is there). So we came back home at 7am. I went into the house to look at the map to find out ….the marathon is Tomorrow! Ugh. Oh well. At least we had a nice drive without traffic! (that rarely happens in Dallas).



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