Dora

Dawson has had a variety of fixations over his lifetime. When he was 1 1/2 or so, he was fixated on cars and the spinning of wheels on them. After that, he became fixated on Veggie Tales, then it was Nemo, and now it clearly is Dora.

We watch (and play) Dora from the time we wake up till the time we go to bed! If you are at all familiar with Dora, Dora and Boots always have someplace to go. They always have three steps to get to their location, such as jungle-river-Dora's house!! or Bridge-rock-waterfall!! We, as parents and caregivers have the honor of distinguishing which episode he wants to watch by key words such as: "River", or "library", "friends" or "Baby Dino"(that's a pretty easy one). At this point, we rummage through our brains to figure out which episode has that item in it. Then we locate the DVD or VHS (copied episodes from TV) and find the right location on the movie to watch. At that point, Dawson rushes to the closet to pull out his bin of "Dora blocks", finds all the charachters, and away he goes. He acts out the movie perfectly, and ALWAYS knows exactly what the next scene will be. He quickly finds the correct props, be it a string for the 'zip cord' or an empty container for the 'tram car'. He usually has the charachters in the right order just before the next scene, and when checking against the TV, they are in the exact right position! Unbelievably excellent visual memory! Often, when you hear him sleep talking at night, he frequently says phrases from the show in his sleep.

Tonight we bought some 'emergency' toys. The kind that you pull out when you either pull out a new toy, or your hair!! Guess what? Everything was Dora something or another! But he loves it; and it's a safe show, so who cares? We all will know the songs or catch phrases from the show till well past retirement, but, it makes him happy.

Now does anyone know of an equally catchy show about Bible stories?

-st

The Last Sale

It's almost that time again...
Twice a year, for several years now, a local store has been donating all of their returns and write-offs to us, and we have been hosting a garage sale to raise funds for Dawson's therapy-related things. What started out as a small operation selling plants and donated items has now ballooned into a huge sale that needs to be done 2x a year in order to sell everything. We have been so blessed by this endeavor, and we would have never imagined that it would become so big.
But alas, as with any fundraiser that happens, one gets burned out quickly- and it becomes very hard to manage the enormous task every six months. The list of people that have been involved is endless, especially our immediate family- but none more than Grandma and Grandpa W. Their tireless efforts of hard and painful work have been tremendous through the years. Aside from simply being normal grandparents to Dawson, they have heaped hours upon hours, and evenings upon evenings into this project. There is no way to properly thank you, except to say that may God find a way to bless you, and may Dawson's next kiss on your cheeks carry loads of gratitude and love for what you've done.
So here we go- tomorrow we start, and Saturday we complete the last time we will do this particular project.
Honey, did you bring any Tylenol with? -t