November 14 Such a nice time with KT

Thursday:  My glaring question has been and continues to be: how do I carry on a good relationship with Kaity now that she is almost grown up, has a ton of other interests, is distracted a lot by her phone ... ??? I remember when Emma was this age--but then Emma was usually with Chris and Matt and they came over as a threesome, playing together and interacting ... it wasn't just ME. It's not that Kaity puts any pressure on me to "entertain" her--not at all, actually. But I always feel a little regretful when we spend 4+ hours together and haven't really interacted very much. Last Thursday, Kaity was too sick to care one way or the other; and thankfully, she was happy enough to lay on my couch, covered in a nice soft blanket almost the entire time she was here.

I took a few pictures of what we did today: I followed Kaity into the spare bedroom and we both looked for a game or two we hadn't played in awhile. I grabbed the "Story Cubes" and Kaity was very enthusiastic about them! So we went out to the front room and told hilarious stories to each other. It's really quite fun to stretch our imaginations a bit!

We also played with this brain teaser puzzle (fashioned just like many others), but we persisted at playing quite a few times. The best I did was leaving only THREE pegs! The goal is to leave only ONE. We had fun trying different tactics to see what would and wouldn't work. Most did NOT work!

I also remembered these unusual puzzles that I don't think I have ever shown to Kaity. Aidan has played with them here before, but I keep them on a shelf that isn't usually a place for toys--so I tend to forget I have them. 

Kaity was very scientific about how she solved each dinosaur puzzle and I was impressed! 

We also did lots of sharing of animal videos and our other "usual" stuff around here. It was such a nice few hours with Kaity!