Trick-or-Treat!

This is Katera's first year going out trick-or-treating with a friend!

She was a leopard... thanks to mom's great luck at Value Village. It was a beautiful, warm, dry evening... despite predictions of rain. Great fun was had by all!

Another one bites the dust...

Karl found another "Farmer Says" See 'n Say toy at Goodwill on Saturday. Katera was with him and practically went berserk when she saw it.

So many Farmer Says's, so little time to break them all! Oh, well... 99 cents is a small price to pay for a few days (or minutes) of bliss.

This one lasted a whole 48 hours! So, if anyone out there is wondering what to get Katera for Christmas, just shop Goodwill and look for a See 'n Say... the old-fashioned, non-electronic ones with the big lever on the side like this one. But don't pay more than $1.99! :)

School Daze

Here I am, getting on the "short bus" with my beloved Tammy... my own private driver and classroom assistant extraordinaire. It was a long summer... just me and Mom. Thank goodness I get to do something different!


Wherever Tammy goes, I go! And, I get the front seat!

Current Obsession: Froggie

So, you noticed that I got a little intimidated by putting the entire chronology of Katera's life here, in order? I decided to just pick up with NOW... and move on. Maybe I'll digress into remembering the past at some point, but right now it's all I can do to keep up with her on a daily basis. Hey! It's summer vacation!

So... here is Katera's favorite toy.


Froggie was a gift from my good friend, Lynn, when Katera was born... way back in 1996, and has remained a favorite ever since. It's her "must have" at bedtime, and the rattling sound of Froggie, being shaken is what we often hear through the monitor, first thing in the morning. He's a little worse for wear these days! :)

Currently, she's been obsessed with playing with Froggie... shaking him, tossing him, putting him in and out of things, throwing him and crawling after him, from room to room.

I Love a Parade!

Here I am with Daddy at the 4th of July parade.

Why go downtown? The parade comes to MY house!

Once Upon a Time

Long ago, when we were naive and thought we had the whole wide world of possibilities ahead of us, a little girl decided to come live with us... and change our lives forever. We had a number of lessons to learn, she knew, and some karma to clean up. (photo at left, age 2 -1998)


We were totally unsuspecting and entered willingly into this relationship, without the slightest thought that anything would be "amiss". We looked into our future and it seemed to include a cute, sassy, precocious little girl... happy, bouncing, talkative, playful, talented... doing things like playing soccer, taking ballet classes, going through an "I love horses" phase, having sleepovers with her many friends, loving her daddy, and eventually talking on the phone too long, liking boys, and having door-slamming arguments with her parents over some article of clothing or a movie she wants to watch. Just the typical girl stuff, ya know?

She had other plans, though. She introduced them to us in degrees, so as not to shock us too much all at once. I won't outline every grueling detail of that process here, as some of it is painful to open up again... and we somehow have a much brighter perspective on it all. We choose not to torture ourselves by wallowing in grief over lost dreams.

We got the cute, the happy... the playful... and the loving her daddy part. What else really matters, anyway? We are humbled by her presence, and grateful for the opportunity to learn new things from her every day. She is wiser than we are... she is our Katera Elise.

I will give a brief overview of what transpired before she became the tween she is now, in all her unique glory... for the benefit of all of you who didn't go through that with us... next time.

Five Thousand Journals

Inspired by others brighter than myself, I'm here... instead of beginning yet again in yet another spiral notebook. Less stuff to grab when running out of the burning house, if ever that moment should come! I may lapse into old memories here, of Katera's earlier life, gleaning from the five thousand spiral notebooks that have come before this. I may invent a new future for her. I may vent, cry, scream, weep for joy... I may record dazzling new feats of strength, or post photo glimpses into the life of our enigmatic girl. Who knows where this is going? Surely not I, Katera's humble servant and advocate extraordinaire!