For the Love of Kitties

Jessica, like many of her young friends, is enamored with cats. I see from her photos and videos as a baby, we only encouraged that love by owning such a soft, friendly, pretty, entertaining animal like our Smokey.

Jessica sure is a bald, cooing, adorable six-month-old chunk of baby goodness as she feels kitty kisses and grabs his tail.

And here, at ten months old, Jessica laughs like a maniac at Smokey trying to swipe a toy.

If Jessica's attention gets to be too much, Smokey hides, boxes her, or gives her a warning nibble to stop her from smothering him. Sometimes she acts like she's learned her lesson, sometimes she just asks for it. (Here, Jessica is using Smokey's favorite sleeping chair to watch cartoons, so I'm pleased they're sharing.)

That's where stuffed kitties come in: they can take all the toddler love and never complain. Like 'Alice', a mechanical kitty Jessica got when she was 2 months shy of her second birthday:

Just last Thanksgiving at Dave's parents house in Houston, she discovered 'Baby Kitty'. She carried it around so much, Grandma Robertson gifted it to us. I named him Jellybeans, after his nose and his plastic bean stuffing. She was three months from her third birthday. On the way home we entertained ourselves by photographing Baby Kitty in funny poses.

Baby kitty was her newest favorite stuffed friend. 

Jessica's birth mom Tegan crocheted this kitty, named 'New Year's Kitty', 'Daddy Kitty' or 'Snowball'. Tegan has a soft spot for felines, too, so Jessica was doomed through nature and nurture to be partial.

For her birthday Grandma Eyring gave her 'Alby' (left), which she renamed 'Twilight' after a friend's cat, who is the grandpa in the kitty family. She spent her gift money from her Robertson great grandparents on 'Sparkly Kitty' aka 'Crazy Eyes' aka 'Mama Kitty'. We gave her the vet kit to care for all her growing menagerie.

So for her third birthday, what else could we do, except throw her a kitty party? I burned a whole CD of cat songs I entitled "Kitty Ditties" for her, which she loves to listen to, the most popular numbers being "Cat Flushing a Toilet", "Smiley Cat", "Meow Meow Ringtone", and "Kitty in a Basket".

Her newest hobby is using my camera to take pictures of her cats, at her desk, sleeping in her bed, and

apparently, showing solidarity in sickness and health. Jessica woke up with a sore neck one day, and spent 3 days watching a lot of movies and drinking cherry-flavored pain-killer. One time I found she had put little fuzzy hairbands around the necks of her plastic kitties, so they could match. Silly, silly kitty-crazed girl!

First Preschool: Joy School for Jessica

Although Jessica was only 2 1/2 by the fall of 2012, my friend invited us to join a preschool-at-home group for 3-year olds in our ward. It wasn't expensive, and was only 2 half-days a week, and I wasn't about to turn down the chance for several hours of free time. Here we are on the first day:

Plus, it was the same Joy School curriculum I had learned as a kid, which brought back sweet memories to me. The material is quaint, but with a few tweaks it was really fun to teach. It emphasizes happiness and gratitude, and age-appropriate hands-on activities over pure academics.

Our units were joy of my body, the earth, honesty, sharing, order, goals, obedience, humor, trust, confidence, imagination, and family. We started the lesson sitting in a semi-circle to do the weather & date, stories, songs, and show & tell object starting with the letter of the week.

Super Hero Me day, from "Joy of Confidence" day is pictured here. (I love that Jessica chose to borrow a Batman mask over Supergirl outfit, which looks even funnier with her girly clothes.)

I took this picture after the obstacle course activity for "Joy of the Body". Too bad Jessica was being a pill; it just happened that 3 kids wore red and two wore purple, so I was trying to get a symmetrical shot. Kids pull the funniest faces...

Our "faith fall" (let your friends catch you falling backwards) during the "Joy of Trust & Confidence" unit morphed into 20 minutes of "Cowabunga!" during playtime.

There was 20-30 minutes of playtime scheduled into the beginning, middle, and end of the 3 hour block, so it wasn't too intense for little kids (or the teacher!)

The kids were so fun to get to know; each one had their talents that surprised and delighted me. Here Ian, Mr. Hands-On, helped me make "fried snowflakes" for a snack, and Julia sang "I Am a Child of God" perfectly, for our "confidence" talent show.

Joy School lesson songs are clever, but sometimes wordy. So most of the time I only taught them a few keywords or actions. This song (during "Joy of Service and Sharing" in December) I just sang to them as I wrapped each of them, laughing, in Christmas paper: 

I Have a perfect present

To give to someone true,

To make us all feel hap-happy--

I'll give myself to you!

Just wrap me in some paper, 

And tie me in a bow.

Be sure I'm covered head to foot

So wiggly ears won't show.

Then give me to whomever 

Should need some love today.

You'll have the Perfect present when

I give myself away!

Arms can hug you tightly,

And feet can errands run.

A song to sing or story tell,

Before the day is done.

During that week, we also played secret service elves, and cleaned up the neighbor's backyard.

We also taught holidays and seasons. At our house, each kid took turns doing each part of a Nativity play, which I narrated and directed at lightening speed to keep up with their 2-minute attention spans. If you look closely, you can see that Jessica, as a wiseman, brought a gold Liahona, body spray, and red pepper flakes as gifts to baby Jesus.

Since there were 9 kids in Joy School, we split into two groups. But we joined together for holiday parties at Halloween and Valentine's.

Our group includes Jessica & I; ladybug Julia on Kristina's lap; Melissa behind Kristina and her mom Emily top-right; Buzz Lightyear Ian and his mom Jessica (taking the picture); and Tanner the tiger and his mom Lauren in black.

The other moms in my group were so great to work with. Thanks Lauren Malone, Jessica Shorter, Kristina Randolph, and Emily Bingham! I loved chatting them twice a week. Jessica loved Joy School and her friends, and was always happy to attend. Frequently, after it was over, and I was finished talking to the other moms, I had to go find her (like below hiding in her friend's closet) and drag her away.

Thanks for all the great memories!

From the Office of Liz and Dave

We love having a bedroom dedicated as an office/craft room. It is full of stuff we try to keep organized and Jessica tries to disorganize in the name of imaginative play and copying her parents. She often wants to stay in the office with me rather that play alone in her room, which also she frequently "disorganizes". : )

I recently came across three pictures of Jessica that made me realize how much time I spend at my computer desk: Jessica playing with a "family" of forks in October, a winter Sunday dress picture, and her showing off her new "skeweten bones!" gloves which she earned for a potty-training prize in January.

In the six months we've been living on Palmer Drive, I've enjoyed looking out the window to see fall foliage; Jessica playing with the neighbor kids all winter, and the spring peach tree blossoms.

We've made lots of crafts, like stuffing funny pillows for cousins' Christmas presents,

and making kitty party favors for Jessica's birthday.

Besides dragging out all my craft supplies, Jessica also practices knot-tying with my cables and steels my camera to take dozens of pictures & videos.

I taught her early this year how to open Netflix's instant kid movies and pbskids.org to play Curious George games. Now she & Smokey frequently share Dave's chair & keep me company in our cozy, practical office.