St. Patrick's Day

As is our annual tradition, Anna went with Mom to work on St. Patrick's Day morning and then on to catch our town's awesome downtown parade.  We had lunch and then headed out into the overcast (but dry!) day.  You can see Anna enjoyed her hot dog.  We stuck out the first hour of the 2-hour long parade, (some years it has been up to 3 hours long!)  long enough to see the bagpipers, horses, fire trucks, numerous floats and classic cars, AND the Capital City Crushers, our girls' roller derby team.  We had a super time!

Dragon Bites

Tonight while doing our bedtime stories, Anna was playing the part of princess to my prince (I always have to be the prince -- AND she makes me talk in a deep voice.  She's very particular about that, so if I break character, she's all over me about it!)  Suddenly said she had an owie on her arm.  There was honest concern in my voice when I asked her what happened, until she told me, "Dragon bite."  I tried to kiss it to make it better, but apparently my magic isn't powerful enough.  "So, what does cure a dragon bite?" you ask.  Barbie band-aids.

Like a fish to water...Anna takes to the stage.

It's been a month since I last posted.  At this stage, Anna is so very active, and interactive, by the time she's in bed, I'm too exhausted to do much of anything.  Ironically, tonight I am posting because I have insomnia.  Seemed like something I could get done.

Anna has had a really busy month. We just finished her 8-week drama class at the local civic theatre. She loved it, so we will plan on enrolling her again sometime. Probably in the fall. The play was, "The Minstrels of Bremen." Anna was one of the narrators and had two lines, "By and by they met a cat," and, "The four friends crept up to the house window." She was brilliant, of course. I was concerned that she may see the audience and become bashful, but I soon knew I had nothing to fear. As the narrators crossed the stage during the opening scene, Anna leapt across the stage in her best ballerina form while the others simply walked. During the curtain call, she practiced her pirouette. This after just three ballet lessons, but I'll get to that later. Anna had a big cheering section in the audience, and we presented her with a couple of pink roses afterward. We were all incredibly proud of her. I figure anything we can do at this stage to make her comfortable speaking and being in front of people, the easier it may be for her as she grows up. The theatre did that for me, and I hope she will enjoy and benefit from it as well.

A few weeks ago we also enrolled Anna in ballet.  Right now it's just a "creative dance" class, and she's really, really, really enjoying it.  (See huge grin in photo to the right.) She'd been begging me to go to ballet for months, so the timing seemed right.  Her friend, Rebecca, who is 3 months older than Anna, also goes to the same conservatory.  Her first recital will be in June at the local Performing Arts Center.  They will have costumes and the whole shebang, which I know will put Anna over the moon.  We might even have to sedate her.  Just kidding.  Again, this is another activity I can really get behind.  She already loves to dance, and I think the coordination building, the grace and body awareness, the athleticism, all that is simply a good thing.  We try to keep her in just one activity at a time because we all need our down time and I honestly don't want to be one of those parents who over-schedules their kid in an attempt to live vicariously through them.  Believe me,  I've seen them in the parent waiting room at the ballet studio.  Yikes!  I think it's important to have a life and an identity separate from your child.  Anyway...  every day is an adventure and we're having a great time hanging out with this awesome, amazing and hilarious little girl.  You all should be so lucky (wink).

A Very Long Engagement

Anna is engaged.  

I know this will come as a big surprise to many of you, as it was certainly a surprise for us.  But honestly, it was seeming pretty inevitable.  They have been dating now for over 3-1/2 years now.  His name is Ethan, and I must say that he is handsome, chivalrous, kind, and highly intelligent, although he does still live at home with his mother.  He is also an older man, almost 7 months her senior.  They met when Anna was 4 months old and he was almost 1-year old.  They started off as friends, which is certainly a great way to begin a  relationship.  This morning Ethan spoke to his mother on the way to school.  He told her he was going to marry Anna and that she would be his wife.  Hannah (his Mom) told him that they were too young for marriage, but that Anna could be his girlfriend.  Ethan was insistent that his wish was to make Anna his wife.  When they arrived at preschool, I had already dropped Anna off, so sadly I missed the proposal.  While Hannah signed him in, Ethan went up to Anna and asked her to marry him.  He then ran up to his mother and excitedly told her, "She said 'Yes'!"  We're encouraging the kids to wait, to at least finish college.  In the meantime, I'm posting some pictures of the two of them taken last Sunday at Chuck-E-Cheese at a mutual friend's 5th birthday party.  

Don't they make a cute couple?

You must bemember this

Tonight Anna was doing some improvisation for an audience of stuffed animals on her bed.  About 15 minutes into a monologue, she began saying, "Bemember not to do that... Bemember what you need to do... Bemember..."  You get the point.  So, Mom has this thing about language.  I don't mean that I'm some perfect-schmerfect Nazi grammarian and spelling bee champion (and let's not even speak of my sloppy punctuation), but I think it's important to be able to speak the King's English and I simply cannot tolerate when people encourage mispronunciations and/or baby talk with children.  I think it's cruel to the baby...and everyone else within earshot.  While I think Anna's mispronunciations are quite cute, I still feel compelled to make sure she understands how the word should be spoken, obviously as a solid stepping stone into reading and writing.  (I know.  I'm taking this way too seriously.)  Example: Anna has a book called "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More."  I admit that it's fun in a singsong kind of way, but every time I have to read it out loud it's like a gut punch.  Psst -- don't tell Anna, but I usually correct a few words when I read it, just so it's not quite SO BAD.  So, I gently tell her the correct way to say the word "remember".  "'R', Honey.  Not 'B'."  (Insert loud toddler protest here.)  "I WANT to say it that way, Mom!  I don't want to say RE-bember!"  So, I'm backing off.  Much like I've temporarily given over to the fact that she calls her coat cubby at school a covey.  And just like I'm ignoring that every doll, stuffed animal and picture she draws is currently named Barbie.  She knows what it is, what it's supposed to be; yet in her own way she is expressing her independence and creativity.  Who am I to squash those qualities?

The Benny Stories

Meet Benny.

Benny came to us via the North Pole at Christmastime.  He is named in honor of our friends' orange cat....Benny.  He's a rather dramatic cat, we've found, putting on all sorts of theatrics every evening at bedtime, often interacting with the neighborhood finger puppets.  Our bedtime routine with Anna is ever evolving, but this is the age of Benny.

Something extraordinary happened the other night...to Benny.
He discovered a magical wishing egg.

Inside the egg was an ordinary looking glob of purple play-dough.










BUT, when you whisper a wish into the egg, the play-dough
magically transforms into your wish!








For example, Anna, having recently lost her snowman
to the warming temperatures, wished for a snowman.

Voila!




The magic egg is now in high demand, and after several nights the play-dough is getting a little dry,
but we're having fun while the magic lasts.


Being the parent of a toddler is the best job in the world, don't you think?

Post-holiday follow-up

The last of the holiday decorations are put away and there's a strange austere look to the house as our eyes adjust to the lack of lights and tinsel and greenery.  It feels like the house has just contracted with a giant sigh.  We have, too.  We're always happy to see the holidays come, and equally satisfied to see them go.  January is a nice, quiet month with very little expectation.  Which is thankful because Mom has been sick for the past week.  But, enough about that.

The weather was crazy around Christmas, with a blizzard slowing things down a bit, and dumped again on us before New Years, and then again last week.  It's been a REAL winter, unlike any I've seen since I was very young.  Anna loves to stomp around in the snow and regularly asks to build more snowmen.  Temperatures just went up for a couple of days, so our latest snowman looks like a witch doctor shrunk his head.

We had a lovely Christmas with both sets of grandparents, and then again with our close friends.  Anna's favorite presents include a painting for her room -- the lyrics from one of her favorite songs -- given to her by Nana and GrandDad, a horse from Grandma and Papa that is the perfect size for her dollies, and a new doll (American Girl) from the Carreno's.  Of course there were a few more gifts - more than I can, or would want to, mention here.  Suffice to say, Anna totally gets the point of Christmas now.  Presents. Perhaps we'll delve into the greater meaning of good will as she gets a bit older.  New Year's Eve is much more straight-forward -- partying with friends to usher in a new year.  We celebrated in our traditional way at the G&D Corral with the McCaskills and Carrenos.  The bonfire was less popular this year because it was too darn cold!  We didn't even hold out long enough to make s'mores.  But we had a great night among friends.

Anna just began a drama class at our local civic theatre.  She goes once a week for 8 weeks, and at the end there will be a stage production.  Other than that info, they are keeping us in the dark.  We aren't allowed to watch the class, which is fine with me.  Anna, at this stage, often does better for other adults when we aren't around.  One of her friends from school is also in the class, which was a nice because she was comfortable from the get-go with Isaiah by her side.

We had a giant icycle growing from the corner of the house.  Alex took it down and gave it to Anna to check out.  Of course it went straight into the mouth.  As I took the pictures, I tried not to inwardly cringe thinking of all of the God-knows-what is contained inside that icycle.  Oh, well.  A couple of licks probably won't kill her.

We end this post, and begin the new year, with thanks, humility and hope.  We are so very blessed.
A very happy New Year to all of you.