Birthday Money

For Kaitlyn Joy's half birthday my grandmother, Mama Peggy, sent her a check to cover her swimming lessons plus $15 extra. Yesterday we cashed the check and gave Kj her $15. We told her we were going to Toys R Us so she could pick something out. She happen to be wearing some pants that had a pocket down on the leg; she wadded up her money and shoved it down deep into the pocket. Neal and I kept checking in with her making sure the money was still there. We walked all over Toys R Us and she never found anything she really wanted. We finally left. We finally made it around to Walmart after making a few other stops. It was there we learned she really wanted a stuffed kitty. They had an ugly one that looked mangy with it's sparse hair. It was only $5, but goodness it wasn't much to look at. She told us how cute it was and announced that she loved it. *sigh* We finally talked her into stopping at Target to see if they had a better one. They didn't. Grrr...

I really didn't want the sad Walmart cat. When it comes to one of Kj's stuffed animals (any kid's really) it needs to be good quality. I'm not trying to be a toy snob here. Quality is important with something that is going to receive much love. Just a couple weeks ago I got two of Kj's puppies out of the drier and gave them to her. The next time she had breakfast one puppy drank from her cereal bowl and the other one had some apple juice. =( They had to be washed again. So you see if the cat was a poor quality to begin with it might not withstand all the washings it would receive.

When I knew Target let me down and I had told Kj that we would check out Target then go back to Walmart if they didn't have a cat, I was stuck. I had to keep my word. I decided to put the ball back in her court. I asked if she would like to go back to W for the cat. She said, "YES! Walmart! We have to go to Walmart!" I then added how we could go to the mall, possibly Build-a-Bear, for a cat tomorrow. I had her at BaB. She woke me up this morning asking when we were leaving for BaB. What she didn't know was that I had done my homework the night before on places that sold cats. She wasn't crazy at the BaB cat (not life like enough) so I looked up Hallmark, Gund, and other stuffed cats. I told Kj that we were going to go to the Base Exchange first. I was hoping they still sold some of those better quality stuffed animals. Sure enough they did. We had six choices in stuffed cats. Two of them were laying down and four were in a ball shape. One of the laying down cats had a dirty head so she went with the other one. We now own a white stuffed cat that Kj promptly started calling Fluffy. I need to get a picture of her and Fluffy so you all can see our new addition.

When we went to pay for Fluffy, Neal gave Kj her money. This was her first experience in paying for something herself. She put her things on the counter and waited her turn. She kept wadding up the money to shove it into a pocket she didn't have. Finally she handed it over then had the pleasure of accepting her change. I took the change from her and she happily grabbed her bag.

She's like her daddy in that she has a squeeze bottle fetish. I know the problem isn't as bad as I'm making it out, but I feel like Neal always NEEDS a new water bottle. Recently Kj keeps digging out different bottles to drink from. I've been trying to limit her to two; we got them at some kids function in downtown San Antonio. Today with the rest of her $15 she bought a Tinkerbell squeeze bottle. I'm sure it will regularly be passing through the dishwasher.