Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 - 7:21 a.m.

Went to the toy store yesterday, got Q some Xmas gifts (like I said I wasn't going to do, but it was a really cool local store so it's ok). Mostly books. Plus some plastic animals (frogs, anteater, a rat). She's going to be getting a lot of books this year. Hope she still likes books come next month.

She's actually proving sort of hard to shop for now that we have an idea of what sorts of things she likes. She doesn't like gadgets or things that go on their own. She's too young to really follow a narrative in a book, but is past all the introductory ABCs, colors, numbers, and shapes stuff. I do wonder why those topics enjoy such prominence in toddler literature. I mean, surely there are other things for a toddler to learn. Get them identifying musical instruments? Insects? Work on their prepositions/spatial concepts a bit? Recognize human emotions? Not much imagination out there.

I mean, you do see things involving perpositions in lots of books, but you don't see a whole book on the subject the way you do colors or zoo animals or whatever. Not that they won't get prepositions on their own, but you know what I'm saying. Just something to mix it up a bit. Mostly I think childrens' books should just be fun, not didactic, and good examples of that are sort of hard to find, too.

Also went to the art supply store. They had some stuff I use, but not all. I don't recall seeing Davy board. I'll have to fins somewhere else; that stuff would be heavy to ship.

I vowed I would do a bit of scribbling every day, like my friend and her guitar. So off I go to do so. Am scribbling non-letters on kraft cardstock (not the ugly stuff, but something I have lots scraps of). Black ink, kraft stock. May add a touch of gold leaf and turn them into things. We'll see. Kraft+black+gold is very appealing, at least to me.

I still haven't made my cactus or palm paper. Maybe should work on that today while mom is still here to help.

�