Dance Class

So, uh, how did I, of all people, end up with a ballerina princess? It must have come from Bobby's side of the family ;) Alice seems to have a knack for balance, spinning, and jumping. Her favorite way to use those skills is dancing. The following is a little piece printed in the News-Gazette Local section last week about her dance class. It's at a Yoga studio. I never would have signed her up, nor even considered creative dance, if it hadn't been for my friend Marianne. Marianne is a creative dance teacher for children, too, so she knows a good class when she sees one. Her son, Spencer, is also enrolled (yellow shirt in the photo).

Alice came up with the ensemble herself, including the hairdo. It's fun to see her try new things and enjoy them...even if they ARE pink and lacey :) See? I can be well-balanced, too.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

First of all I have to respond to Susan's post about Robert. Not that I am concerned about the boy at all of anything, but he is much more well rounded in his play then the post seems to indicate. He like to take cars and drive them around too. He also loves to hit things that make a sound. And one of his most favorite things in the world to do is to bob up and down to music. He seems to be a very well rounded boy.

As for the rest of the week, it really felt like most other weeks. Alice did get her picture in the local paper, as part of her dance class. But we have not even seen it yet, although we had several people tell us all about it. We will try to get a copy up as soon as we can.

Surgery Dance

Many, many thanks to the Barney family for sending Alice a box of hand-me-down toys and dress up clothes last week. Holy cow! She's been in heaven since those three pink leotards showed up at our house. The lacey one is her favorite. She puts it on as often as she remembers it, which is quite often. It has inspired her to create several new dances. The following clip is part of her new "Surgery Dance" but it doesn't show my favorite part which is, "...you lay down on a table and get poked with lots of sharp things and then get up and twirl and twirl and twirl 'cuz now you feel better."

 

Moose Pajamas

This is actually a post about Robert, but he's wearing the same thing in every picture/movie despite the fact that they were all taken at different times. Apparently, footed moose pajamas make me want to take pictures of him. Hm.

Robert's 9-month checkup was last week. Everything's on track. His weight has returned to the edge of normal (90th percentile) and his length is great (75th percentile). I can tell he wants to communicate more than he's capable of, so we're starting to use sign language with him. I think he gets it. He's shy around strangers, but smiley about it. Sweet boy. Love him tons. He's absolutely in love with Alice and can't get enough of her good-natured, if strange, wrestling technique (i.e. squeezing his hands, pushing his tummy, talking in his face in a silly voice). We got lucky again with this one :)

Now on to his skills:

Robert has grown up around baby dolls and seems to like them. He buries his face into their tummies, claws at their faces, and shrieks excitedly when he sees them. Here's Robert snuggling "his" baby while getting ready for bed (Alice gave it to him for Christmas).

Robert's getting around better than ever. He'll take several steps when we're playing the "walk to me" game, but only recently has he started walking to get places on his own...between bits of furniture and such. Nothing huge. He gets silly proud of himself every time, though. Cracks me up. And it makes me want to call him Mr. Awesome. Last weekend during "Movie and Popcorn Night", he crawled to Bobby, climbed up on his knee, and perched there like a baby bird begging for popcorn scraps (Yes, yes, popcorn is one of the most choked-on items for toddlers and young children. Rest assured, each popcorn kernel was carefully selected and hand-crafted by Bobby to remove every hint of the sharp and chokey fiber before popping it into Robert's mouth where it melted instantly. Bobby couldn't keep up with demand.) 

Robert has seen Alice play with the Magna Doodle once and he's already working hard to master it:

In the background of this clip, you can hear Bobby explaining the end of Shrek 2 to Alice as it plays for "Movie and Popcorn Night." He's trying to keep her from crying. We only do movie and popcorn once a week but somehow it gets mentioned in every post.

Yup, that's my mail carrier.

My mail carrier is awesome. Rides a Harley and saves lives. Oh yeah!

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Monday I had the day off so I was able to spend it finishing the floor in the kitchen. That project is now officially done. There are still lots f other things to do through out the house, but that part is now finished. The rest of the week felt fairly normal. Like we are finally getting back into our lives now that the holidays are over. There really isn't anything else that happened this week.

Aina

Alice has an imaginary friend. Sort of. Her name is Aina (pronounced A-nuh). She is all things, all ages, owns everything, and has experienced many, many exciting and terrifying situations in her short lifespan. She dies every other day. Alice has talked about Aina for a long time. As far as I can tell, Aina is not a "real" person in Alice's life. Alice doesn't see her and talk to her as if she were physically present. It's more like Alice tells stories about her.

I can only illustrate this through examples:

Alice perches on her seat, interested in something she's doing at the kitchen table. She loses her balance, tips in the chair, and scrambles to remain standing. She smiles and says, "I kept my balance! I didn't fall!" I cheer for her, we celebrate, and she climbs back onto the chair. Then she turns to me and says, "You know, Aina fell off her chair once."

"Oh really?"

"Yah. And she got a big bonk. She had to go to the hospital ("hos-i-puhl")."

Another time, we were talking about visiting family far away and Alice shared, "You know? Aina lives in Utah. You have to take 5 airplanes to get there."

Conversations about her upcoming birthday party prompted Alice to say: "Aina invited me to her 8 birthday party! She got baptized."

So, I figure Aina is the one who experiences all the things Alice wants (and doesn't want) to experience. It's a way for her to think about possibilities without putting herself in that imaginary situation, which can be super scary for an almost 4-year-old. Aina is a safe thought experiment.

When Alice is tired and a bit grumpy or sad, sometimes she'll say she's sad because Aina has died. Sometimes "she dies only a little" and sometimes "she dies forever", depending on how sad Alice is feeling at the moment.

Recently, Alice was playing at the Family History Center while I was trying to check in some films and she drew one of her cute little self portraits. She gave it to me to "keep forever" (translation: don't throw it in the recycle pile when we get home, okay Mom?). Then she drew a picture of Aina. This is the first time I've ever seen Aina:

 

Alice tells me those are freckles on her cheeks and a bellybutton under her smile. She looks like a pleasant sort of girl, happy and strong despite her periodic misfortunes :)

Update

Youtube messed up the videos from the previous post. They are updated now so if they didn't work before they do now.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week I have several videos. The big news this week is.

Yes that's right he is walking, sort of. Mostly he just needs more confidence that he is not going to fall over, so he is not doing it on his own without a lot of encouragement.

Alice has felt a little jealous. Whenever we applaud Robert for walking she wants to get applause for doing the same thing, or having her dolls do the same thing.

But for the most part their relationship is very good.

And another video of Alice playing/Dancing this morning just for fun.

And yes she wore the outfit to church. She likes to dress up fancy.

Nuisance Removed

It's gone. The pile has been removed. I thought I would be happier, but I'm just plain tired and sore. It was a big pile. It was half-frozen. The leaves peeled off the driveway in sheets. Many thanks to the Bairs for loaning us a truck and to Marianne for lugging and straining with me. It wouldn't have been nearly as fun (er, uh, possible), without your contributions.

Now to tackle the garage. If only there were some kind of garage police to ticket me for parking on the driveway :)

Bobby's Sunday Summary

A lot happened this week. Actually a lot happened Saturday and today. That is the way it seems, almost everything happens on Saturday or Sunday. Alice got to go to a friend birthday party on Saturday. The most difficult, and depending on who you are funny, part of the day was when I showed up with the present to wrap for the other little girl who turned two. It was a baby doll from the dollar store with a doctor's kit that came with it. Alice saw it from across the room and instantly wanted it. I tried to pick something that she already had to reduce the possibility of this happening. But she really wanted it, and she was really tired too. She was ready to trade all of her dolls and her doctor's kit in to get this one new doll. After we had refused she fell apart into a pity party. We heard things such as "I don't want to be nice I want to be mean and nasty" or "She gets all the nice things the only thing I get are rusty old clocks". The last one was yelled from the bath room where about the only thing you can see is a clock, and she does not even really know what rust is. The good thing is she calmed down and had one of the best times of her life at the party. There was dancing and candy and fun.

Alice also gave her first talk in Primary today. She did a very good job with it. And just for fun here are some random spinning videos from this week.

Vegetation Nuisance

It's official: the gigantic pile of branches, brush, and bagged leaves adorning our driveway has become a "Vegetation Nuisance Generally" to the City of Urbana. They knocked on my door this afternoon to let me know personally. We now have exactly 7 days to relocate it or we will be fined.

I kinda stopped seeing it after a couple weeks.

It's been there almost 6 months.

Time flies when you're avoiding a gigantic pile of work.

*sigh*

Anyone want to watch my kids for a couple hours?

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Susan wanted me to talk about ice skating with Alice. I think you can get most of it from these two videos. Alice did get a little bit better as the evening went on, but I had to take several breaks each time around the ice, because my arms got rather tired walking her around. My back was not too back, she is tall enough that I did not have to bend over.








Despite how it may look Alice really liked it. We asked how much she liked it. She said that she liked it more then singing, which is a big deal for Alice. I'm not sure how much that will stay, but it was a lot of fun.

Happy New Year!

We have just returned from our awesome trip to Houston, TX for a warm and homey Christmas with my sister and her family. My parents were there, too, making it extra special. I feel like there's too much to blog about and I'll never catch up.

*sigh*

Photos help. It was relaxing except that I got very little sleep. I hardly saw Alice for the first two days and there were several hands and excited cousins to occupy Robert's attention. It was a vacation from my home responsibilities and some of my parenting stress. Delightful. The kids took the 16-hour car trip pretty well. I didn't. Only 2 hours into the ride, I turn around to get something for Alice and my shirt sleeve tears up the middle. The fabric just gave up! I kept meaning to change my shirt at every potty or gas stop after that, but kept forgetting. The silky fabric frayed all day. I left strands of my shirt in Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas (sorry Missouri).

Half of the journey I was up front with Bobby and the other half I was wedged between the car seats in the back. By hour 14, I was busting at the seams to get out. I texted my friend Rachel for some small measure of mental escape. That helped a lot, actually.

Anyway, I mentioned photos...

Central BBQ in Memphis, TN. Coleslaw on my pork sandwich?! You bet! Woo hoo!

Alice says, "Don't take my picture!"

Robert says, "The camera LOVES me!"

Daddy says, "Gotcha on camera anyway!" Then Mommy says, "Root beer and chocolate chip cookies do not a good lunch make. Eat more of your mac and cheese...actually...*groan*...never mind."

We got to Houston very late and went straight to bed. The next morning, I went to Yoga class with my mom and sister. I learned that Yoga was not as weird or hard as I thought it would be. I also realized that it's not a very social form of exercise. Hard to keep a conversation going while contorting. On the way home we stopped at a bakery for some kolaches (sausage and cheese wrapped in a sweet roll). Conversation always flows naturally around yummy food :)

Alice and Robert fit right in with their cousins. Alice enjoyed the computer time:

Alice always had someone willing to play with her and get her snacks. She didn't need me at all ;) By the end of the first day, I realized I hadn't said more than 5 words to either Bobby or Alice all day. I actually missed them a bit. 

Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open 2 presents. Alice loved the presents her cousins created for her. Mary wrote and illustrated a fairy tale featuring Alice as a Rapunzel-like princess. That went over quite well (see below). Sam wrote a series of nursery rhymes that had Alice and her parents doing crazy things like jumping over the moon and hugging raccoons. Sarah wrote and illustrated an adventure novel where Alice encountered a hamster.

Then we all bedded down for a long winter's nap. Robert and his parents excluded. The boy just couldn't manage a full night of sleep the entire vacation. Alice slept in a room with Mary and Sam. Sarah (5 yrs old) was sleeping in her own room, quite concerned that she would make the mistake of going down too early (therefore getting in trouble), so my sister Lara made this sign and posted it at the top of the stairs:

The next morning, Bobby heard the kids singing Christmas carols in their room while they waited for 8:00 AM to finally arrive. Here are the cousins, only seconds before heading downstairs together.

 Alice was interesting to watch that morning. She carefully looked over her pile, but was most excited about the stocking. She pulled out each item one by one and put it aside without comment. She slowly approached each new toy and tried to figure it out. Then she started to play with it. The box of Froot Loops was an immediate hit, though.

 

Alice and Sarah played intensely.

 I did too, with Lara. Here we're figuring out a digital voice recorder (for family history purposes).

Speaking of family history, my mom and some of her family lived in Houston many years ago. We visited her father's grave:

And later located a couple others that were previously unknown to us. We knew the people but didn't know where they were buried (my mom's maternal grandparents):

Robert refined his crawling technique a bit, settling on the one-legged-tuck scoot. We had to lure him with his favorite things to get him to crawl. His favorite things are almost always dangerous (cords, electric sockets, scissors, toilets). In the following video, we're trying to convince Robert that an ordinary nutcracker is dangerous enough to warrant crawling. (As if crawling across the kitchen table weren't risky enough, right?). In the end, it wasn't the nutcracker that motivated him.

My parents gave Alice and Sarah a whole pile of craft supplies and little dress-up kits with sunglasses, a headband wig, and high heels. The girls played Rapunzel for an hour. Check out Alice with long hair:

After playing the same story once or twice, it starts to morph. Alice picks up her new "collection box" (for Christmas, I gave her my old Caboodle filled with all the rocks and shells she's gathered) and plops down on the living room floor. She pulls out a long shell and starts dabbing it on her face. Then she gets another and rubs it on her cheeks. She's...putting...on...make-up. Where'd she get that? I've no clue. It's fine, though, because once her makeup is applied, her collection box is instantly transformed into a doctor kit and she's a princess Rapunzel doctor going to help sick people. This girl cracks me up.

We took a trip to IKEA where I found some inspiring canvas fabrics (did you know IKEA sells fabric?!) and a few other house items. I'm afraid I spent too much time choosing between duvet covers...I have absolutely NO confidence in my home decorating sense. None.

We got to eat lunch at an amazing Asian market called Route 99. I've never had reason to call dumplings "hyperpalatable" until now. I am forever ruined on Chinese dumplings of any other kind *sigh* And I never thought bean curd could be SO tasty. Er, uh, tasty at all. But now I know better. Much better.

Here's Alice eating a sweet pineapple bun from their bakery:

Robert fell asleep. Many thanks to Heidi for the luscious new sweater to keep us warm.

Sam rode with us on the way home.

Robert kept sleeping. He was so tired from being up all night *sigh*

In the evening, after kids went to bed, we sometimes got to play games. Phase 10! Here are my mom and dad:

My sister Lara (4th of 9...we all have a Borg name, too):

 

And my dear husband with my pile of tangerine peels:

I think I ate 10 of them this game, just trying to avoid the bowl of rich milk chocolate in the center of the table. I briefly eased up the dairy and chocolate restrictions on this trip and paid heavily for it. I really, truly, would rather sleep. Even See's soft-centered truffles *gasp* just don't compare to uninterrupted sleep...or less interrupted sleep. Robert still woke us up several times every night, but at least he was "easy" to put back to sleep. On milk and chocolate, it's not so easy.

On this trip, Alice got to try ice skating for the first time. I'll leave that description to Bobby since it was their first daddy-daughter date ever. Here's the before picture (she really is excited, I promise):

It happened at the Galleria in Houston, which is a gigantic mall. Their Niemann Marcus department store has an amazing ladies' room downstairs with a luxurious lounge area. Perfect for nursing a baby, if you can tolerate the hoity-toity maze to find it. I would also be thrilled to nurse Robert again at any IKEA. Those folks get it. 

On our way back home to Illinois, we stopped in Memphis for dinner and a sleepover. We tried a different place called Corky's and I'm SO glad we did. Now I'm ruined forever on BBQ pork ribs. Oh my heavens. I liked ribs okay before, but now I'm in danger of dreaming about them. Robert had a great time, too. He flirted with anyone who would look at him (and even at a few who wouldn't). I'm amazed at who he can get to respond to him. Tattooed, pierced, bleached, or ripped...Robert doesn't care. He saves his best dimples and winks for the most extraordinary people.

His lightning fast hands toppled a huge glass of ice water, scattered a pile of napkins, and sampled a piping hot plate of pasta marinara before we could catch him. Was Alice ever like this? She must have been, but I think I had more focus on her to predict these things. I feel like I'm always forgetting what Robert is capable of.


This post is freakishly long and kinda quick. So sorry. Next vacation, I'll ponder and post as I go so it's not all rushed like this. Resolution #1 for the new year, I guess :) Happy New Year!