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.