The rest of the catching up... a kind of longish post.

I called about a free playgroup in the area that is run by my city government and which was recommended to me by the our case worker, Robin.  It's free to city residents, and for other people it's only a dollar!  It's once a week for about 90 minutes in the morning, and they play and do art and have a little snack.  They are taking a 2 week break right now, but will start up again the first full week of September.  I am really looking forward to going and I hope it will be fun for Karina.  She really needs the interaction with other children.  Once she's too old for this one, there's another one that's for ages 1-4 (this one goes to 2yrs). 

Next, I'm excited that my friend is coming over tomorrow to check out my cloth diaper stash.  She has a little baby girl and wants to use cloth on her.  She's had a lot going on recently, so we have had a hard time catching up, but I'm happy she's coming over tomorrow.  She wants to start using cloth diapers, and I get to show her how I take care of mine.  Too bad Karina picked tonight to make a mess of her diapers!  Oh well, such is life.  Small potatoes.  I get to show her my diaper sprayer and the detergent I use and the diaper rash cream that I love (Grandma El's, I'm a total convert), and all the different brands I have.  I wish I had had someone to help me out when I started.  I didn't know anyone except Danise, and she used them so long ago that they had really changed a lot.  I was so lucky though because she was here to visit when Karina's belly button scab fell off and I could finally put my diapers on her.  I didn't know anything about special newborn diapers and such and was forced, unhappily, to use disposables on her until the scab fell off.  Danise was able to show me how to fold the prefolds and put them in the covers and then put the covers on my daughter.  Well, I'm sure I could have figured it out, but it was really nice to have someone there who'd done it before.  Now I get to be that helpful person to someone else, and that makes me really happy.  I think my friend is going to be really happy once she makes the switch to cloth.  She's already excited about it.

Finally, today Karina and I took a dishtub out onto the front porch, filled it with water, and she played for almost an hour in it.  She loves water, and especially pouring water from one container to another.  Unfortunately, she usually spills more than she saves, so I don't let her do this in the house...very often.  She had the best time, though.  I had a bucket of extra water so I could refill the dishtub when she had spilled the majority of it, and we just sat out there and had a good time.  Then she went across the yard to where my little dog statues are under the crepe myrtle tree, and carried them over to the steps.  She kissed them both, then set them down and sat down next to them, with her arm kind of over them.  When we had to go in finally, she kissed both of them again.  It's the sweetest thing how she does that.