Derek

Paige has lots of Barbies - a ragtag collection that she has inherited from her older sisters. I think we have only purchased one Barbie for her - the rest are all hand me downs.  Among those dolls is one boy - Ashlee thinks that he is from a Disney movie, I can't remember which, but at our house, he's Derek.  Christopher plays the role of Derek - and for about two months right after he got home from his short summer deployment, he was Christopher's constant companion whenever he was home.  I wish that I would have written down more of the things that Paige had him doing in the name of Derek, but some that I remember are:
• One Sunday at Church (Derek's last appearance there) I looked down the aisle to see Derek karate chopping Odette (usually that's the girl Barbie's name, but not always) all up and down, it was a little bit loud.  When I asked later, Paige said that Odette had died and Derek was helping her.  Odette used to die once every 2 or 3 minutes.
•  Derek spent about an hour one afternoon throwing up into a plastic cup - he was really sick.
• One day when Christopher got home from work, Paige came running down the stairs with Derek in one hand, Odette in the other, saying "Oh Derek, guess what I'm wearing?" It was a ball dress.

Derek has come with us to the movies, to church (no longer), to the grocery store etc. etc...

It was my favorite thing to watch Paige play with her Dad and Derek.  He still makes some appearances, but it's not as frequent as it used to be, which of course makes me just a little bit sad.