Panethea's Playground!

Name : Panethea

Age : 5 1/2 (at time of photo)

Birthday : July 28th, 1993

Adoptive Mom : Zhie

Date of Adoption : March 5th, 1999

Favorite Color: Green

Favorite Foods: Cheese Pizza, Anything from McDonalds, Anything Chocolate

Major Likes: Dancing, Snowball Fights, and Saturday morning Cartoons

Major Dislikes: Cleaning up her room, Soggy Cereal, and the Taco Bell Dog

March 5, 1999
I received the message today around noon that Panethea was healthy and ready for adoption from Memories of Thundera Adoption Agency. I immediately headed over to pick up my five year old bundle of joy. First, we went over to the bass lounge, and I introduced her to teh band. She got a kick out of playing with all of the instruments, especially the drum set. When the band started playing, she started dancing! It turns out little Panethea learned how to tap dance from watching Singin' in the Rain. She's got a real talent for it.
When we got home, I realized I had to get to work. I called up Panthro, who was more than happy to baby sit for Panethea. The two of them hit it off right away. He brought her a box of crayons and a huge pad of paper that was bigger than her. I guess that was all that he needed to keep her busy, because they were still coloring when I got home.
Tonight was my brother's 18th birthday, too, so we had a double celebration. It was a friday, and being in Milwaukee, friday means fish fry. We had it delivered, and Panthro stayed around to have cake with us before heading back to his pad.
After the party, Panethea took a bubble bath -- and managed to get almost all of the water out of the tub. Then she got into her jammies and we watched a little cartoon network, since I don't have to boycott it any more now that Thundercats is back on. I gave her the stuffed rabbit that I picked up for her at work. She fell asleep soon afterwards. I carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed.

March 9, 1999
Yesterday, I enrolled Panethea at Lincoln Elementary School in Kindergarten, but she lucked out today. There was a snow storm last night, so school was cancelled for her, but not for me. I had to call up Panthro again to take care of her while I was at school.
I didn't get home until 9:45pm, and by then, she had fallen asleep. She looked so cute, cuddled up with her growing collection of stuffed animals -- I just can't help spoiling her. Panthro told me that they had built a snow fort and had a snow ball fight, and except for a slight incident when Smudgie, my black lab, didn't like the idea of being rode around the yard.

March 12, 1999
It was Mark's birthday today, so the three of us went to Pizza Hut for lunch, where I introduced Panethea to the wonderful pasttime known as Atari.  She played Ms. PacMan before, after, and while she was eating her pizza.  We practically had to drag her out of the place.  Then, because she's been begging me for the last week about it, we stopped at Wheel and Sprocket and picked up a new bike for her.  She wanted to be able to ride home with her friends from school.  Later on, we had birthday cake again, but I'm going to have to watch out about the frequency of these birthday parties, or she's going to think we have one every week around here.

April 4, 1999
Easter!  Boy, did Panethea have a great time today!  I set up an egg hunt for her in the back yard.  She had a great time finding them.  She's on this weird vegitarian kick lately, though, so she refused to eat any of the ham at dinner.   Hopefully, she'll grow out of it, or I'm going to have to put stock into veggie burgers.  I'm really not sure what got her started on it, but I'm guessing that it had to do with something she saw on the Discovery Channel or PBS.  Damn children's broadcasting...

Maybe it was those demonic teletubbies...

April 12, 1999
Finally, Panethea has gotten off of the veggie thing.  She finally gave in when I took her to McDonalds yesterday. ("But sweetie, you can't get a furby toy if you get a salad.  You have to get a happy meal.")  Five-year-olds can certainly be funny that way.  The new phase she is in is that she wants to be called "Thea" now, because it's so much more adult than Panethea is.  I suppose it's quite a bit easier to deal with than the meat eating problem was.

July 28, 2002

We headed to the Adamante Children's Store today to pick up a spaceboard for Leonus, when we realized that Panethea would likely enjoy having one as well.  There was a large selection of colors and styles to choose from, and we eventually settled on one that was airbrushed in every color under the sun, with double running lights on the back (the green end) so that drivers can see the board at night.  Panethea was especially happy that the lights were bright green.  We picked up something for the cubs as well, which you can see by visiting their room.

October 31, 2002

Halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays, and with the cubs this is no exception.  We all dressed up, however, I was at the clinic during Trick or Treat to scan bags of candy with the X-Ray machine to make sure they were safe, and in case anyone fell down and scraped a knee or something.  Panthro was good enough to come and help Faero take the kids around the neighborhood on a quest for candy, bringing with him his own cubs, Chase and Thera.  Panethea and Leonus dressed up as Princess Leah and Luke Skywalker, and I followed suit at the clinic as a Jedi Knight.  Faero and Panthro were dressed as gunslingers from the old First Earth west, each of them donning cowboy hats and bandanas for the occasion.  Thera was a mouse and Chase was an elephant, but one would never know with how bundled up they were, if not for their silly noses.  And what of Barry and Allen?  Pirates, arrrr!  From what I heard, they demanded candy instead of asking for it, threatening to make unsuspecting homeowners walk a plank if candy fruit and thunder snackies weren't dropped in ample supply into their bright orange plastic pumpkins.

I know this seems a general posting, but there is a reason I've put it in Panethea's section.  During a routine street crossing, the group was just about on the other side when Chase's bottle fell out of the stroller and began to roll across the street in the direction from where they came.  Barry, in an attempt to be helpful, turned and was going to run after it, but Panethea, seeing what was going to happen, grabbed Leonus's light saber, and swung it out to block Barry.  She then scolded him gently on the merits of crossing a street with an adult, and only when there aren't any cars, and even then, a bottle can be replaced but a Barry can not.  (  Leonus, I was told, attempted then to use a  'Jedi Mind Trick' to convince Barry it was okay to cross a street without an adult and that Barry wanted to run across the street to grab the bottle.  Suffice to say, I used the popular Jedi Grounding Trick when he arrived home. )  I'm very proud of Panethea, not only for her quick thinking, but how she handled the situation.

December 9, 2002

I took Panethea shopping for Christmas presents today - a girl's day out, you might say.  I'd post what she picked up for everyone, but knowing Leonus, he's probably read the log here already, so I'd better wait until after Christmas.  I did pick up a new pair of ballet shoes for her ( she seems to wear them out every few months ) and I let her pick up a game for her and Leonus to play later in the week, since Faero and I were going to be taking the twins out to shop without the older kids around ( Leonus insisted getting Grandpa ThunderWolf to take him shopping ).  To my surprise, she decided on a chess set.  Below, you can see a picture of it.  She and Leonus played until bedtime, and I was amazed at how interested they were in the game, and also in the rules. 

Panethea's been doing very well in school, in fact, her teachers are talking about having her skip up to sixth grade next year.  Even though they keep asking my opinion, I've told them and Panethea that it's really her decision to make.  She says she likes the idea of having more of a challenge than now, but isn't sure that she wants to be in a different grade than most of her friends, and that she was really looking forward to being a fifth grade crossing guard cadet next year.  She still has many months to think about it, and she's not at all stressed about it one way or another.  I'll keep everyone posted on her decision.

December 16, 2003

I realized just how much Panethea has grown up since I adopted her, and so I asked Al about having an updated picture drawn of her.  Talk about a sweetheart, at the end of the week Al was at my house with the following drawing.  I hadn't even known that their had been a conspiracy to get Panethea out of the house for a while and to the park so that the drawing would be done in secret and as a surprise - for both of us, in fact.  Faero took Panethea to the park and took lots of pictures, then Al picked up the pictures and did the drawing.  I think it's just wonderful, and obviously, there's a copy of it here on the site.

March 20, 2003

Panethea has finally made her decision about school.  Although it was tough for her to decide not to be a crossing guard cadet next year in school, she likes the idea of skipping a grade very much, deciding that then she can start college a whole year early in the end.  It was good to know she was looking forward to college after high school, considering she's only a cub of nine years.  It's definitely a good thing for her to be a positive role model for the rest of her siblings.