Spooky

 Gimme costumes for everyone!

Gimme a beautiful Fall evening with my sissy and my Mom!

Gimme good friends and good cousins!

Gimme a free pressure washer!

Gimme loads of candy!

What's that spell?

The perfect Halloween!

Athlete

Kitty has wanted to play soccer for a while.  I had her signed up just before Covid hit and then - well, you know the "and then."

She didn't get to be on a soccer team for more than a year.  

Boy, was she excited when the season finally started up again!  She carefully chose out her practice gear, deciding to go with a pink palette.  

And then her team shirt turned out to be gray.  Wah-wah.  But she was a good sport about it.  

She loved being on the field.  Michael and I loved watching her while eating snacks. What I didn't love was enduring the rain a few times.

I must admit that I absolutely enjoyed watching her play soccer.  I never expected those words to come from my mouth.  I'm maturing.

The best part was getting a medal at the end.  Kitty is convinced it's made of fool's gold.  Whatever the material, it was all worth it.

Maybe I'll be a soccer mom for the next few years.  And maybe I'll even like it.  

9-Years-Old

 My Kitty turned 9!  Look at my beautiful girl.

Kitty started planning her 9th birthday party the day after she turned 8.  She went with a Harry Potter theme this time.  She presented me months ago with her annual drawing for an elaborate cake that my sausage fingers would have to create.  

It always looks easy on the paper.  It's never easy.

Thankfully, my mama was in town and was able to help me create a masterpiece for my girl.  Well, it was a slumping masterpiece, that we rescued from certain death a few times, but it worked out in the end.  My mama made the broom and snitches, Mykey resin-printed me a mold for the Quidditch hoops, and away we went.  

It was a pretty cool cake in the end.

The day was full of fun.  We began by letting Kitty open her presents from us before her friends took over the house.

Then we braced ourselves for chaos.  And I mean chaos.

We decorated wands that Mykey had 3D printed.

We ate lots of food.  On the menu was Hufflepuff Cheetos, Slytherin twin snake gummies, Ravenclaw pizza pie, and Gryffindor butterbeer.  Yummy!  While eating, they cranked up the Alexa and danced on their chairs around the table.  It was loud and wonderful.

We also did an escape room and played minute-to-win-it games.

Our games were Erumpet Horn: they had to stack and balance 5 pool noodle disks on their forehead. 

Wingardium Leviosa: they had to keep a balloon in the air using only their wands.  

Devil's Snare: they partnered up and wrapped their partner in an entire roll of streamers.

  Mirror of Erised: they had to use a mirror to walk backwards through a maze of chairs.    

We had floating candles and they had to walk through Platform 9 3/4 to get through the front door. But I didn't get a picture of that.  Shucks.  

And then there were presents galore!

What a party!  I'm exhausted.  

Now let's see what she's planning for her 10th.

Animal Behavior

It's just what cats do with boxes.

Spooky Recital

Creepy Halloween recital anyone?  Kitty's got you covered.  

We had a good time at the performance.  The first part of the recital was your typical cutesy-Halloween black cats and witches dance numbers.  The second half was creepy murderous-teenager dance numbers.  It was strange.

But - watching Kitty was divine!  And my parents were in town so that was an extra treat. Kitty got to dance in 2 numbers.  She was a mad scientist and a kid on the playground. 

After the performance Kitty exclaimed, "I loved being on the stage and having all those people clapping for me!"

I loved it too.  

Jogathon

The jogathon was back at school this year! Kitty was pretty excited about it  - mostly because there was a cool prize she wanted to win.  Each student received one ticket for every $25 raised and they had a bunch of prizes that would be raffled off.  

Kitty had her eye on a Star Wars fused bead kit.  She spent weeks telling me her strategy: she was going to put ALL of her tickets in for that one prize to increase her odds.  She calculated that this strategy gave her about a 70% chance of winning the item. I hoped she was right.

When I asked Kitty how many laps she planned to run this year she said, "I don't have a number in mind.  I'm just going to do my best."  Good enough for me.

In years past, we've been able to be down near the field cheering her on.  This year, they wouldn't allow parents on school grounds because of our friend Covid.  No one mentioned this fact to any of the parents and Kitty just happened to bring it up the night before the jogathon.  She was very upset that we wouldn't be able to watch her run.

Try and stop me.

I told her I would stand in the road and cheer if I had to.  I wasn't going to miss the jogathon.

We ended up standing on the sidewalk above the track with just a handful of other parents.  I thought it was very sad and unnecessary that we couldn't support our kids.  OUTSIDE.  Well, if you know me, you know I have a big mouth and a loud voice.  The parents around us were cheering for their kids and not one of them looked up because they couldn't hear the cheers.  When Kitty came running by, there was no mistaking my roar.  She heard me just fine.  And the other parents were impressed.  Or annoyed.  It's hard to say.

I screamed and cheered and my Kitty ran and ran.  12 laps that girl ran.  12!  That was more than 2 miles!

We gave Kitty $10.50 per lap and she quickly turned in the money in exchange for her tickets.  She put them all in the jar for the bead kit and then we waited.

The day of the raffle arrived and Kitty was certain she was going to win; she'd done all the calculations after all.  I just hoped she wouldn't be devastated when her ticket wasn't drawn.   

I drove up to the school that afternoon thinking about what I would say to console her.  What I really needed was words to convey my shock and delight.

Kitty won the raffle!  It was yet another successful jogathon.

That'll teach me to doubt her strategies.