Imagination –noun
1. the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
Dictionary.com

Creativity –noun
2. the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.
Dictionary.com

Two seemingly close meanings and yet when I look at my children I see them as too completely different things. Sure they are concurrent but they are not the same.

Kathleen is creative beyond all things. She loves to make things whether its with paper or with her toys. She loves to build, draw, color. She has a desire to figure things out.

Samantha just loves to play. She lets her imagination do the work. She is currently playing with wooden letter blocks a trailer to a car and several other things, and she’s talking, they are talking. They can’t do these things in real life, but they are doing it for her.

This is by no way me saying one is smarter than the other or plays better or anything like that. I am just amazed that with the same set of toys and same upbringing how these two girls play so differently.

I was not an only child, me and my brother I think played in the same fashions. We had good imaginations, and we loved to play to the full extent of our ability playing with every toy at once creating dramatic worlds and “characters”. I remember setting up cities with our fisher price people and the match box cars as their skate boards and scooters. They had houses made of blocks or just a rug that we designated as their home. These would stay set up for weeks on end as we played until it was time to clean our room.

It amazes me to watch the things they pick up from each other. Kathleen is learning to imagine, Samantha is learning to build things from her sister. But when left alone they go back to their roots and their natural modes of play.

I’ll never forget the day Shea told the girls we were going to the store, Sammi just did not want to go, so he asked her if she wanted to go to the moon. She was of course excited. We got there and Shea exclaims “were at the moon get out!” Kathleen immediately says this is not the moon it’s Jerry Lee’s. She refused to take part in our “moon adventure” lol. But she went in arguing with her Dad the whole time about whether or not they were on the moon.

The girls wrote their letters to Santa, Kathleen wrote the whole thing with my help for letters.

I’ve attached Kathleen’s letter so you can all see it for yourself.

It says “Dear Santa, I have been good. I want a Dora. Kathleen”

Samantha didn’t write hers. She sat in my lap and I wrote it for her.

“Dear Santa, I have been good. Don’t listen to my Daddy. I want Toys, a monkey and Cereal. Love Samantha”

While she was thinking about her list she paused dramatically Ummm, Toys,… um, with her finger to her lip… a monkey… um, Cereal.

She said she wanted cereal, I giggled.

We burnt the letters and they are now magically on Santa’s note pad for him to read. I found out this was a British tradition, it’s kinda cool, but I mostly did it cause it was what I did as a kid and enjoyed it.

Kitten will be 5 next month. I’m still in awe of that. I’m not one of those people who sit and think oh my I remember when she was just this big holding out my hands to some small proportion she once was. I remember it, but it’s not like yesterday.

Kathleen as a baby. You couldn’t put her down after you fed her at night or in the middle of the night without waking her up. It became so bad at 9 months when Shea’s son went back to his mothers we put the double bed mattress’ on the floor and surrounding the bed with pillows on the floor. This just so I could feed her while she was laying down and not have to go through the motion of a short Mommy reaching down into a deep crib. Yeah that wasn’t fun when she’d wake up and I’d have to rock her back to sleep all the while trying to keep her from waking Shea up. That transition made life so much easier.

A month later she was walking around, it was truly amazing to watch her waddle from one place to another. Then comes Sammi and life took on a bigger meaning and she had to learn how to share, which Kathleen did really well. She wanted to help and since she was walking already it was a cake walk to take the girls grocery shopping by myself. I think that was one of my biggest fears with two kids. Not being able to go to the store when I needed to, to have to wait for Shea to come home to do it. But we manage to do it with out a problem.

Kathleen is now going to be 5 and I’m like wow, has it been that long already. I’m so proud of her. While we still have issues with potty training and various other issues, she’s a great gal and smart and sweet. She’s very loving and even though her sister and Bubba beat up on her she loves them to death.

It amazes me when she shows off the things she does in preschool. I knew she could do all these things, she just needed the right push. She doesn’t like going to school, but she’s always excited when she goes home, she always has fun and she does learn a lot. I am very proud of her. (Not that I’m not proud of Samantha lol, but this is about Kathleen hehe.)

I still am amazed when the girls call me Momma, Mommy etc. It’s still really kinda unbelievable that these little ones are mine. They drive me batty almost every day but I wouldn’t change it for the world. The holidays are coming and they are who I hold on to when I’m far from my family. These two are the world to me (and their Daddy too). I can’t imagine a day without them.

Friday was Trunk R Treat, we went down town and had a long wait trying to get candy. It was a mad house, but the girls got enough candy to do them some good. I took my camera but it was so busy there was no real good time to let go of the girls hands to take a picture. It was pretty much a fight to get what we did get.

Shea had Samantha and whenever there was a scary costume he’d tell her isn’t that silly and she’d agree. I think it got her thru the scarier parts. The only thing Kathleen was really afraid the freddy krugar at the fire truck at the end of the event. Then we went home for the glorious candy they had.

Yesterday was suppose to be trick or treating around town but I don’t think there was many out there, our door bell never rang, but then again we didn’t have the lights on, nor did I have much candy to spare, I’d bought one bag just in case but we didn’t even have those. We didn’t take the girls out as we don’t have anyone to go see. They’ve had enough candy anyway so they don’t know the difference.

Today we are going to Shea’s parents house for food/cook out family gathering type thing. It’s their anniversary and his younger brother’s birthday so the girls have spent this morning making pictures for them. I wish I had real paper for them to draw on, but all I have is off white yellowish paper which is hard to see much on with what they had to draw with. Oh well, Kathleen did write their names and her own so it’s all good.

Kathleen had her Halloween fall party at school today and I forgot my camera. But I did volunteer to help out so I really didn’t have time to take pictures. I helped with the bowling game. So I was all over chasing a ball and setting up pins and trying to help kids behave themselves in line and take turns.

I did manage to see Kathleen win the sack hop. She only fell once I was really happy.

On another note, Kathleen had a follow up ear appointment yesterday. It did double duty yesterday as she had a fever the following day and a slight one yesterday too. She didn’t go to school yesterday either. Her ear infection wasn’t gone, her antibiotics this round while covered by our crap insurance cost almost $100. If it hadn’t been antibiotics I would asked for something else.

Kathleen is also on a daily dose of Zyrtec and Nasonex. Poor kiddo. But she’s doing fine, she had a good time today and I’m happy. She played with her friends, tho I think she was a bit lost too. She did enjoy herself and that means I can volunteer more often for things for her. I really think she enjoys showing things off to me while I’m there, but I was busy working on the game so she was a bit lost. She did good tho I’m proud of her. Sammi too, but she’s a social butterfly so she will be fine just about anywhere, and I didn’t have to worry about her there so that made things much easier.

Kitten isn’t doing so well right now. She woke up with a headache at 4am, so I gave her some tylenol. Then at 6:30a when I went to get a shower she wasn’t “breathing” so well, so I gave her some Zytrec. She went to school no real issues, but she was at school complaining of a sore throat and belly and was nearly asleep on the table when I got there.

We came home I took her temp as she felt a bit warm, but she was wearing a sweater, it was a bit high, nothing major so I gave her some more tylenol, then let her take a nap. She’s still napping.

Thankfully we have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

But I really don’t know if this allergies or her getting sick. If she has allergies she’s like me with no real visible signs of having them, it’s all in how I feel – my head is off, I have a headache etc. If do sneeze a lot when my allergy medicine is on the down ward spiral of the 24 hour medication. So I really don’t know what’s going on, I think she’s sick with the change in weather, that’s my gut feeling, her allergies don’t make her sleepy in general.