Baby Bums

Evie continues to have her two-year-old highs and lows, with the highs being so absolutely delightful, and the lows being really pretty miserable.  But, to be honest, we're pretty lucky with the lows.  They
pass somewhat quickly and I feel like they're only 10-15% of a total week.  Which may sound like a lot, but somehow those highs make me so quickly forget about them.

Watching a tree come down

Nana and Grandpa at the Cubs

I talked about how we started ballet two weeks ago, and it didn't go so well.  So, I spent an entire week gearing her up for last week's class.  We read books on ballet, we practiced our "releve" and "attitude" positions. She pranced around the house in her little ballet dresses and shoes.  I went above and beyond in getting her excited to go to this class.  I had just never seen her be so afraid of something new, so maybe I did a little bit of overkill to try to gear her up for the class.  Well, Nana and Evie and I headed up to the ballet school last week and low and behold the damn class had been cancelled.  Apparently they'd tried calling my cell and left me a message 25 minutes before the start of class -- the teacher had "just called to say she had an emergency".  Fine. I understand things come up.  But in my opinion, you don't cancel a little kids class like that.  Hold a play session. Let the little girls run around and dance to music. Let them play dress up with the tutus. Do SOMETHING.  It's not like the studio doesn't have two people there are all times... Instead, we pull up (me not having checked my messages) and find the studio dark and the door locked.  Evie started crying "I. Do. Ballet."  And this wasn't a pretend cry. This was the first time I've ever heard Evie's "I'm truly disappointed" cry.  It broke my heart.  Now, I know that I'll have many years ahead of disappointed cries, but I felt partially responsible for this let down since I'd spent seven days building her up for the class.  Nana and I offered to take her to a play place, and she wasn't interested "I do ballet.  I see teacher. Practice butterfly. Go dancing!".  The one thing that seemed to make her feel better was an off handed offer I made to have pancakes for lunch.  I learned immediately after saying that I probably shouldn't have mentioned it until later because then that was the only thing she wanted.  We skipped out on the playplace and went home.  Pancakes would be an easy-to-fix meal in most houses, but of course that isn't the case in my house. I don't own a box of Bisquick.  I make them from scratch.  I blend up fresh buckwheat and mush in bananas and a number of other ingredients to make them delicious (and make it not so obvious they're healthy for you rather than junk). Which means it takes approximately 40 minutes or so to have them on the table.  Those 40 minutes were hell in the kitchen.  Trying to get Evie to be patient after such a let down was next to impossible.  So then I was disciplining her for her whining, all the while feeling even more guilty that I had to discipline when I knew she was having such a tough morning anyway.  Life's lessons I suppose - for her and me.  Just because you're having a bad day doesn't mean you get to act like a brat. 

The girls

Speaking of whining, our house policy is that she may not whine in the same room where we are.  So, if I'm in the kitchen and it starts, Evie has to go to another room.  She knows the rule quite well.  All Will or I have to say is "Evie, you can choose to stop whining or choose to leave the room" and 95% of the time she quickly composes herself, and the times she can't, she'll run to another room and commence screaming/whining/etc.  So, Evie has two friends who are a bit younger than her.  Izzy is 9 months younger and Sloan is 6 months younger.  Evie and Sloan do a lot of activities together, but Izzy isn't around as often because she is in full time day care.  Izzy was at our house the other night and we were having dinner at the table.  Izzy was having a rough day and had been whining/crying a lot since she'd arrived.  At dinner, everyone was enjoying their pizza when Izzy started to throw a fit.  She crawled into her mom's lap and started slamming her feet on our dining room table and screaming hysterically.  Nobody really knew what to do.  Then, Evie pipes up and says "Izzy. No whining. Go to another room!" Way to break the ice kid!  Though Izzy didn't stop whining, it at least gave the adults something to laugh about and discuss other than the incredibly loud elephant in the room.  Then, more recently, Evie and Sloan were at the gym kids center together.  Sloan is getting a molar and had been crying for 20 minutes to the point where the gym staff was going to go get her mom.  Apparently, Evie walked up to Sloan and said "Calm down!" and Sloan stopped immediately and the two started playing together.  Seems to me as though Evie is practicing her role of bossy big sister a few months in advance.  Fortunately, both sets of parents thought Evie's requests (demands) were hilarious and Sloan's mom especially appreciated that it meant Sloan calmed down rather than her getting pulled out of her class to take Sloan out of the gym. 

Which brings me to the baby bums.  Last night we met the Stefani's (Sloan's family) and the Kremer's (Izzy's family) at an outdoor concert.  The girls were running around together, sharing food, and somewhat sharing toys.  The three of them don't always interact when the families get together, but last night they were a blast to watch.  After the concert ended, everyone came back to our place to play in the yard a bit.  The Kremer's had been given a hand-me-down bouncy house.  Amazing.  It was super easy to put up, and the girls were in heaven.  We also had the baby pool all set up in case the bouncy house flopped, so they were running between the two.  Izzy and Sloan's diapers got soaked to the point of explosion almost immediately, so the two ended up as nude-nicks and Evie wanted to join in the fun.  So, we had three naked baby bums running around full of giggles.  It was so much fun to see them all acting like kids instead of babies.  The bouncy house went home with the Kremer's but will become a regular occurrence moving forward. Best baby sitter ever.   

Finally, today brought the return of ballet.  I began talking the class up to Evie again, but only starting yesterday so as not to risk another major meltdown if something prevented us from going.  She was incredibly excited to put on her ballet outfit and talked about it the whole drive there.  However, when we arrived, her trepidation came flooding back.  There was a new teacher, which may or may not have contributed to her attitude.  She was not at all interested in coming in to the class.  So, once again, I made my way into the studio and tried to encourage her to participate. And once again, she cried every time I tried to step away from her.  She was glued to me for the first ten minutes.  Then came round one of cleaning up.  Evie knows that drill and willingly obliged.  The teacher then asked the class to line up by the door, and I'm not certain, but I think Evie thought that meant she got to leave, so she ran over with the other girls and stood in line.  The brilliant teacher brought out teddy bears for them to dance with, and that was all it took.  Suddenly Evie was the start pupil imitating everything the teacher was doing perfectly.  She'd occasionally look back to me and consider returning to my side, but each time I simply smiled and waved my hand for her to go back to the teacher and back she went.  It was an amazing transformation.  I was so proud to see her actively participating and following instructions.  One of the reasons I think ballet is good for her is to understand how to follow rules outside the home.  Montessori is anything but that, and I love it for other reasons, but think it's important to supplement her learning there with these sorts of things.  At the end of class, Evie was absolutely beaming from ear to ear, and ran to hug the teacher.  As we left, she said "I do more. Let's go back!"Now, here's hoping she remembers that come next week!