Ballerina Girl

When I became a mother, one of the areas of parenthood that I was not sure how to navigate was activities. As in, how do I decide what kinds of things Caroline should do? The list of possibilities is seemingly endless: soccer, T-ball, piano lessons, art classes, gymnastics, dance, violin lessons, Girl Scouts, swimming, tennis, golf . . . you get the drift. Growing up in a small town, I didn't have a wide variety of opportunities for extracurricular activities, and what opportunities there were, everybody participated in them. So I don't recall any dilemma, really, about what to choose. I just did what everyone else did.

In the city, however, there are all kinds of things to do, and I guess you can get your kids involved in as many activities as your schedule -- and your wallet -- will allow. I decided that I would introduce Caroline to several diverse activities and then watch to see what she gravitates toward. She took Kindermusik until she was old enough to start preschool choir at church, and we've done swimming lessons at the Y. But I knew that it was time to start looking for dance lessons when we watched the movie "The Game Plan," which contained several ballet scenes; when the ballet came on, Caroline would flit and float around the room and try to dance like the girls on the TV. It was obviously something that interested her!

I settled on Jo-Ann's Little Dancers, and we started in September. Caroline's instructor is a sweet college student named Miss Laura, and she teaches tap and ballet to the class of five little girls aged three to five years old. There was a Christmas recital (not a full-blown recital with costumes -- the girls wore black leotards and their own Christmas sweaters), but I didn't have Caroline participate in it because it wasn't even a month after Julia's birth and I was still trying to get my bearings. I didn't think that Caroline would even notice, but one night she came out from class with a sad face and told me, "I want to be in the show. I wish I could be in the show." I felt so awful. I promised her that she would be in the spring show for sure.

So, the spring show this year was held the afternoon of Mother's Day. I stayed up late the night before gluing Caroline's headpieces, taking up her ballet skirt, sewing the straps on her leotard, labeling her shoes, and taking care of all the other little details that needed to be done. I really was excited about Caroline's first recital!

The first number that Caroline's class performed was a tap dance to "Winnie the Pooh." Here is her tap costume; I was sad that the fringe got all tangled up because I had spent a lot of time the night before making sure that it was all untangled! I guess in the hustle and bustle of backstage changing, it got a little wild. Oh well, I thought she still looked cute.




Here are some action shots:



And here is a shot of Caroline taking an impromptu solo venture downstage. I think she enjoyed the spotlight!

The girls' ballet dance was to another Winnie the Pooh song, "Little Black Raincloud." The girls danced this one with umbrellas. It was so sweet that I thought I would just burst with all the cuteness.

I'm just a little black rain cloud/Hovering under the honey tree

I'm just a little black rain cloud/Pay no attention to little me

Everyone knows that a rain cloud/Never eats honey, no not a nip

I'm just floating around, over the ground/Wondering where I will drip

Twirling the umbrella

Sweet little dancers

In the following picture, Caroline is twirling the umbrella while she taps her little pointed foot on the ground. My mom, who had driven in with my dad from Perryton to see the recital, told Caroline that it was so cute when she tapped her little foot. "No!" Caroline told her. "It's not tapping, it's pointing!" Now every single time that she sees the following picture or watches the video of this dance, she has to inform us that she is not tapping her toe, she's pointing it. She can be pretty particular that way! It's one of the little things that makes her our Caroline, and I love her for it.

At the end of the show, all the dancers came back on stage, got their little awards, and sang the little song "Skidamarink a dinky dink." And just like that, the show was over. I got sad thinking, that's it -- never again will Caroline be in the youngest class of dancers at the recital. Time is passing so quickly, and I love watching her grow into the person she's becoming, but I also wish that I could slow moments like these down a little and live in them a little while longer. I guess that's why I'm trying to blog more -- so that I can better remember these special moments of being a mommy. I made a big and scary decision fourteen months ago to take a break in my career to stay home for a couple of years to raise my girls while they are small, and while I am still quite worried about whether the legal world will take me back after my "sabbatical," one thing I do know for sure: I am thankful for all the time I have gotten to spend with my sweet little girls, and I'll never regret it.

From the fullness of his grace

we have all received one blessing after another.

John 1:16

Well, it's official: I'm old.

I found my first gray hair this morning. Jason tried hard to convince me that it was blond, not gray ("It's the same color as your hair at the bottom!" -- i.e., the old highlighted hair that's growing out -- that did not make me feel any better, by the way). But there's no denying it, I'm getting gray hair.

Hear that? That's the creaking of my knee as I lower one foot into the grave . . . .

There's a party in my tummy . . .

Well, so much for that posting-every-week thing. Sorry!

Anyway, around the third week of April, I looked at the calendar and realized that maybe I should start thinking about giving Julia some solid food since she was coming up on 5 1/2 months old. With Caroline, we were so excited to start solids; I believe she was 4 1/2 months when we started cereal with her and right at 5 months with sweet potatoes. Well, poor Julia, time just flies this time around and I wasn't anticipating it as much this time -- probably now because I know what a mess it makes and I'm not looking forward to cleaning that up! It's so much easier just to sit down and nurse whenever we feel like it. But I can't keep her a little baby forever, so I decided to break out the rice cereal the next week. And man, did she like it! She kept diving for the spoon so much that it was hard to get it in her mouth:

Look at that tongue!

(I love how she's holding her toes in this one)

Looks like she's an eater like her mom & dad, but seriously . . . she likes rice cereal? I bet it tastes like cardboard. No, I haven't tasted it. In fact, I have not tasted any of that baby stuff -- no formula, no breastmilk, no baby food has passed or will ever pass these lips. I know lots of moms that do taste the stuff, and hats off to them, but I can't screw up the courage and I figure, if the baby's eating it, that's fine with me -- I don't need to jump in on the action. Curiosity won't kill this cat.

"I like it, Mom!"

It was so different from Caroline's experience. Here Caroline is in December 2005 upon her first taste of rice cereal:

Obviously, she was not a fan. We tried it only a few times and then went to the jarred food. I did try another kind of cereal (oat, I think), but she did only marginally better with that. So no more cereal for her! But her baby sister eats a bowl every morning. They are definitely different girls -- Julia so far has been more laid back than Caroline ever was, although Julia isn't exactly a shrinking violet herself (little kids typically like to come talk to her when we're out in public, and they're always amazed at how loudly she can scream)! But I think they'll still be sweet sisters. I know I was (and still am) very different from my younger sister, but I'm blessed to have her and I love her lots. I think my girls feel the same way: