Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

Just a few things about yesterday in short form because I should be making breakfast.

Yesterday, we had twice the usual amount of therapy that Julia gets on Saturdays -- 6.5 hours. I got a lot done in the house and could listen to what was going on. She played two games (for two stickers towards a Leapster), very willingly cleaned up most of the time, and spent a long time playing with dolls. Weekend therapy time is different from the weekdays. Julia is fresher which makes sense.

Dolls! Yesterday and totally out of the blue, Julia asked about "her" dolls. She does have dolls that I put away more than a year ago because she had not touched them in months. She and her therapists played dressing and undressing dolls for a long time. She even took one of the dolls out for a walk when she and I walked the dog.

Julia is obsessed with the number of days until Christmas. LOL! And so, we are slowly counting down to the big day. Never a bad think to be using numbers!

I cleared some toys Julia has not been using much from the toy shelves. Interesting to me, I put her big box of dinosaurs downstairs! Although Julia is still interested in dinosaurs, she draws them, makes them from clay, has a few work books with dinosaurs, but she seems to prefer little people and animals. The dinosaurs were her earliest inactive characters. Those dinosaurs mostly fought and ate each other. They chased each other away from nests and did not do much sharing or positive interaction. Yes, Julia worked on lots of anger feelings with those dinos. I'll see if she misses them now that they are downstairs.

Trying to come up with some perfect Christmas gift for Julia. Since her birthday is January 16, I usually buy gifts for both at the same time and split them. So far, I will get a Leapster 2 (hand held computer) and a tube sled. There is plenty out there that she wants but I want the rest of her gifts to be useful for therapy -- games for sure, games that will offer more than spinning and advancing on a board. I am looking for suggestions here if anyone has them.

And, and, and, Julia has been asking every day to get our tree, but we get live Christmas trees and usually put them up a few days before Christmas so that they look good for about a week or so after Christmas. I could get into putting the tree up early, but not this early -- we would have dry sticks by Christmas. Also, Cheshire is not coming home until Christmas day. I'd like the tree up during her stay. And so, I've been racking my brain to figure out how to please Julia's tree needs -- decorating, of course. Cleaning yesterday, I cleared the top of the toy shelves that usually holds bigger toys like Julia's doll house. I cleaned up the doll house so that she can put up new Christmas decorations there, and cleared the whole top of the shelves and put up a bunch of tiny Christmas trees that I used in our old house (but have no room for here). I'll look for some snow looking material to put under the house and trees, and we will dig up, buy and make all sorts of little stuff for those trees. Hopefully, that will keep her busy and happy until the big tree goes up.