Scenes From a Ballet

I'm not technically supposed to be taking pictures during Brigid's ballet class, because the studio where she takes her class frowns upon that sort of thing for various artistic and class-disruptive types of reasons, but, I'm sorry....

You tell me how I'm supposed to NOT want to capture every moment of this absolutely adorable event on film? Or whatever the equivalent of that action is when I'm using a digital camera instead of actual film?
I'm going to progress to video, next, I think. A super secret, stealth video, so you can hear Brigid shout about how she wants to put princess sprinkles and chocolate chips on the cookie she is making when the class is stretching (I don't get it, either, but the class seems to love it, so apparently the former ballerina-turned-teacher knows what she's doing, here...). And you can watch her FREEZE when the teacher shouts the magic word of the day. And you can see her truly terrible plie form.

(She gets it from me, I'm sure. But Jodie Sawyer had terrible turn-out, too, and she was a fabulous dancer, so I still have hope. Also? I should maybe stop relating everything about this class back to Center Stage. Probably.)

And, uh, you can maybe see how many times the teacher has to call her back to attention, when she starts to lose focus on whatever it is they're doing at the time. There's a slight chance that she might get that from me, too, since my mother was told that she was wasting her money on my ballet lessons when I was a kid because I never listened to anything the teacher said.

But whatever. She's an artist, you know? And artists have to follow their own path...

The first step to mobility...

When I took Caitlin in for her four month check-up, the pediatrician informed me that 'as soon as she decides she's ready to roll over, she'll start rolling over'.

So, you know. Helpful advice from our trained professional, right there.

I love our pediatrician. I do. I just...what does that even mean? Because, honestly? I'm not sure 'want' had a whole lot to do with last week's crossing of the milestone that led to my loves-to-be-swaddled baby no longer being swaddled at night due to the fact that I found her facedown and ANGRY in bed on Friday morning.
And don't let these pictures fool you...
This kid was not any happier spending time on her stomach when she got herself there in the first place than she's ever been when I've been the reason she's spending time on her stomach. And yet, every time I told her it was all her fault she had to hold her own head up for any significant period of time, she gave me the angry face.

She's just lucky her angry face is so cute.

I can't tell if they're working for me or against me...

On a near daily basis, I go back and forth with myself over whether I'd rather have the chance to stay home with my girls full-time or keep working in a job where I can actually get people to listen to me (or, at least, pretend to listen to me) more often than not.

This week, the pendulum had fully swung into the SAHM territory. Between the terrible things that were happening across the country that left me wanting to do nothing more than sit at home and sniff Caitlin's head, and some beyond stressful work deadlines, by Wednesday, I was just done. DONE!

Then, I got home. And Steve was out of town for work, so it was just me and the girls for the night. And Brigid had picked some dandelions at school, and someone had told her that you should blow on the white fluffy ones while making a wish, and I had to stop her from doing just that in the middle of my kitchen, because cleaning up dandelion fluff was not on my list of things to do that evening.

Instead, we headed to the back porch, so Brigid could make her wish and blow her dandelion fluff.

And then she wished that mommy and daddy would stay home forever. When I asked her what, exactly, she meant by that, she told me that she wished we didn't have to go to work and the store and places like that.

Well, then.

Of course, Caitlin countered that pretty compelling argument by waking up four times over the course of the night, so that by the time I left for work the next day, I was just happy that there was a pretty good chance that for the next few hours, I wouldn't be hearing any more indignant screaming coming my way because I'd had the audacity to NOT BE IN THE ROOM WHEN MY CHILD WOKE HERSELF UP at 2AM, and yeah...

I still don't have an answer for myself.

Saturday Snuggles

It's hard to be mad about getting up early on a Saturday morning, when these two are the reason that you are up early on a Saturday morning.
The look so darn proud of themselves, don't they?

Happy Friday!

There is absolutely nothing wrong in running around with a flower as big as your head in your hair.

Especially when you don't have any hair yet...

Creative Solutions

Wearing gloves to bed does not, in fact, discourage thumb sucking, when said thumb sucker takes her glove off after you leave the room. We're moving on to the nasty tasting thumb stuff, next.

Brigid is thrilled.

Running the Roost

Last night, as I was telling Brigid that her third post-bedtime bathroom run of the night was going to be her last, she told me to 'take a chill pill'. And while I was giving her my best mom look, and explaining that we are NOT, in fact, allowed to tell our mommy to do anything of the sort, she laughed in my face, because she'd busted me trying to hide a smile when the words first came out of her mouth. And she had NO PROBLEM calling me out on it.

Earlier in the evening, she told Steve she didn't know if Santa Claus was going to come visit him, because he was being a bad boy. It seems that Santa does not approve of us getting angry at Brigid when she doesn't listen to us.

And in between those two incidents? She conned Steve into giving her dessert, even though she knew she wasn't supposed to have any because she'd stuck her foot in her watermelon bowl, after I asked her not to do that anymore.

(Don't even ask. These are the kinds of requests nobody tells you that you will be making someday...)

I...I don't even know anymore. There's not even any point to this story. THESE ARE JUST THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN MY HOME NOW THAT BRIGID IS THREE.

I've got nothing.

They grow up so fast...

When I got home last night, Brigid was playing out in our front yard with two of the neighbor boys, including the two and a half year old next-door neighbor that she's been referring to as her 'boyfriend' for almost a year, now. Whenever those two get together, each one of them tries to scheme their way into the other kid's house, because, you know...it's always better to play in someone else's house with toys that you don't have access to on a daily basis.

But because we were closing in on bath and bedtimes for both kids, I left Steve to stop Brigid from pestering Mrs. Neighbor, while I took Caitlin in for the night. Brigid, of course, came home sobbing because we'd dared to stop her from doing something she wanted to do, even though we promised she'd be able to play with her friend again today.

And I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that whole incident had something to do with her telling us, while getting a bath later in the evening, that she wanted to go live with our neighbors now. And when Steve told her that we would miss her if she left, and that poor baby Caitlin would be sad without her big sister?

'I'm going to miss baby Caitlin.'

So. Yeah. Guess that settles that, then...
(Also, there was that moment this weekend when Brigid claims Steve said it was ok to kiss a boy when she turns five, apparently having missed the 'thirty' part of that conversation. And this little story will someday be used to explain to Brigid why we locked her up in a convent at such a young age. The end.)

Baby's First Cereal

At Caitlin's four month check-up on Monday, the doctor told us we could go ahead and start her on rice cereal if we thought she might be ready to make the move to solid foods. When Brigid was four months old, it was beyond obvious that she was ready, because she was eating her weight in formula on a daily basis. But Caitlin? She just hasn't had the same appetite as her sister. So, we kind of pushed that recommendation to the side at the time...

(Of course, we mainly put it to the side because we kept forgetting to go out and buy some rice cereal for the poor kid, but also, she just didn't seem to need it, ok? That's the story I'm going to go with here.)

Fast forward to a measly THREE DAYS LATER when Caitlin just couldn't get her fill of formula. She was up last night at 11:15pm, 4am, and 7am, which...doesn't seem like a big deal, does it? It's not, really. But when she's been known to sleep from 8:30pm-6am on a good night? AND it takes her an hour (minimum) to go back to sleep? AND I have to get up and go to work on a stretch of four hours of sleep?

Well, then it becomes just a slightly bigger deal.

(I know. You hate me. I've lucked into a good baby who sleeps for longer than two hours at a time, and I should just quit complaining. I'm sorry. I KNOW.)

Then after a morning when no amount of bottle feeding was going to make Princess Cait a happy baby, Steve decided to give the cereal a shot.

Caitlin had...mixed...emotions.

Steve facetimed me at work, so I could see how Baby's First Cereal went down, and I couldn't resist grabbing a couple of screen shots, because 1) LOOK HOW SWEET AND CUTE!!! and 2) I am a terrible parent who laughs at the unhappy faces of her children.

 

Poor, poor, poor Caitlin.

(She recovered nicely, I promise...)

Prima Ballerina

Admittedly, all of my knowledge around how a ballet company is run comes from the movie Center Stage, and that's maybe not the most realistic representation of how things work. But then again, it may be exactly how things work. And if it's the reality?
Then Brigid is going to be the one ballerina all of the other ballerinas hate, because she will have been part of the Company's system for a million and a half years. SHE WILL HAVE THE INSIDE TRACK TO BEING THE PRINCIPAL DANCER OF THE AMERICAN BALLET COMPANY!*

*ahem*

I mean...the Atlanta Ballet Company, of course. The American Ballet Company is fictitious, and Peter Gallagher is not the company director, and I am not obsessed, and I should probably stop watching so many movies...

Look! Over there! Cute baby in a leotard!
*Of course, all of Brigid's future success as a ballerina hinges on the hope that she doesn't take after Steve and I in matters of grace AT ALL, because if she does? Poor kid is screwed...

Easter Babies

Brigid had four Easter egg hunts this year. Four hunts. One at school, one at the neighborhood gathering, one at church, and one at her grandparent's house.

FOUR!

And yet, by the time the third hunt rolled around? She was still bypassing eggs that were lying on the ground RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER because she hadn't yet grasped the concept of the hunt. As my competitive nature was kicking in from the sidelines, and I'm yelling at her to JUST GRAB AS MANY EGGS AS YOU CAN AND QUIT LOOKING FOR THE PRETTY ONES!!!, I realized that, juuuuuust maybe, I was taking the church Easter egg hunt a little too seriously? Possibly? Probably?

I am a phenomenal example for my children, obviously.
  Favorite Brigid-ism of the holiday (said with tremendous surprise and excitement after finding a golden egg at my in-laws' house): I always wanted to find a golden egg!
I'm glad we're helping her cross items off of her life list at such a young age...

Four Month Check-Up: Caitlin Edition

Caitlin had her four month check-up today, and as I am the same person who forgot when Brigid's spring pictures were at school (and let Steve send her in that day wearing a sweatshirt and the messiest pony-tail, ever) AND when the school Easter party was being held (meaning my daughter was picked up from school that day carrying a paper bag with her name written on it instead of an Easter basket brought from home, like the rest of the kids, and also, possibly, that she ended up stealing eggs from those same kids, since I'm still not sure whether we were supposed to send her in with treats or not), I forgot that Brigid didn't have school today when I made Caitlin's appointment.
So, instead of taking advantage of the vacation day and planning something fun for Brigid to do, we had a family field trip to the doctor's office for shots! Just how every kid wants to spend her morning, right?

On the other hand, dragging Brigid along with us while Caitlin got her vaccines meant that I had the chance to hear her sing 'Rock-a-Bye Baby' to her little sister, trying to calm her down when she was crying after the shots, so...
Yeah. My kids are pretty awesome.

Height: 24 3/4 inches - 69th percentile (Brigid: 25/80th)

Weight: 13lbs 14oz - 56th percentile (Brigid: 14lbs 10oz/75th)

Cheeks: completely kiss-worthy

Four Month Development Checklist: perfect