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!