I saved the best for last. We started out December really struggling with what we were going to get for Doodle. Take into account she really has everything — she’s the only grandchild on Duck’s side, so when Grandma and Grandpa come pick her up — they typically take her shopping and buy her whatever she wants.

Well, thanks to some of Santa’s special elves, Doodle really had a great Christmas! Here’s just her stash she found on Christmas morning:

First, elf Duck managed to find a used motorcycle that we could put training wheels on. And thanks to elf Karen, we have a Wii. I had thought about trying to find one for Doodle, but honestly I didn’t want to go through the headaches. The Saturday before Christmas, my buddy calls up and asks if I know anyone who’s still looking for one — she picked up two for family but they’d already gotten them. So, I took it as a sign that we hadn’t gone in debt enough and got the Wii — and some games to go with it. Other stuff here includes Webkinz, Origami books and paper, a movie, and some rock and glass stone painting kits (Doodle loves artsy craftsy stuff).

Here’s Doodle on her bike out at Grandpa’s — Duck is the worrier of our little family so I was really surprised that he wanted to get her a motorcycle. He did run after her while she was learning to ride it — he ended up running behind her around the house about 6 or 7 times. The bike has 3 gears though and it wasn’t long until she was tired of being in 1st gear. Yesterday she wanted Duck to show her how to change gears.

In true Doodle-fashion, she gets upset if she cannot do something the first time she tries it. This has been extremely obvious this week with the Wii as well as her bike. On the Wii, she was not used to the remote — it’s different than the one she normally plays with. She got upset until I explained that she needed to try and use it because all the stores were closed, and I couldn’t go buy another controller Christmas day. Well, she played with it and now she loves it.

Yesterday, she got upset that she couldn’t switch the gears with her foot. I don’t know if her foot’s not strong enough or she’s just not getting it. Either way, I couldn’t help her. She likes to fuss at me — as a matter of fact, she’s fussing at me right now because she’s having trouble on her Wii getting through a certain part of the game — and my “clicking” noises (made by typing) are aggravating her majesty.

Side note about video games: I got Super Mario Galaxy for Doodle for her Wii. I remember when I played Mario Brothers — I can’t even remember the real name for it. It was before Luigi — I remember that much. Mario used to be this flat looking 2-D character and you could only go to the right — jumping over things and sometimes going down pipes. These games nowadays would literally make me sick to my stomach — there are 3-D worlds where Mario goes up, around, down, walks up walls, walks on the ceilings, and all kinds of stuff. I must really be getting old! And yes, I remember playing Pong! Loved it! But my favorite was probably Pac-man and Galaga.