I've been following several people's blogs for a while now, and have decided to resurrect my own. My original posts are missing, so I'm starting from scratch.
Let's start with my new find: gDiapers! Wow! Those things are so cool! We've been cloth diapering, but for the last 6 months my mom has been keeping us stocked in disposable diapers. Sure cuts down on the laundry. But, that many chemicals just doesn't sit right with me... so we're trying out gDiapers.
They're way cool. They have a cute cotton cover, waterproof (removable) liner, and then these sweet inserts that you FLUSH when they're soiled! We had our first incident with not breaking them up completely today (I won't gross you out with the details, but they included me sticking my hand into an overflowing toilet to pull stuff out...).
Dance land: I'm teaching all of the FMA dance classes right now. Yes, all of them. We're streamlined into 5 instead of 8, but it's still a lot. Two different homeschool resource centers, plus the Parks & Rec classes. It's lots of work but it's paying off. I'm seeing lots of improvement in attention span and dance technique and I can finally work at rebuilding my "Senior Class" now that mostly everyone has graduated and left for college.
Speaking of dance holy smokes. So, Katherine found this amazing lady in California who is selling her daughter's old solo dresses. For $300 each. I KNOW! I spent $1300 on my red dress!!! So, she was selling one of her daughter's older dresses and I bought it. The measurements were perfect. Except when it arrived, the measurements were off, and it didn't fit. Oh, and did I mention all sales were final? Yeah. So here I am with a dress that I can't wear.
Enter in my dance student who was next in line for a new dress. Not only did it fit her perfectly with room to grow, but it's the PERFECT color for her! So, they bought it, and I am now on the hunt for a new solo dress that fits better. My red dress is just... too.... "high waisted" for me. So, it's listed for sale (lemme know if you have anyone interested in a new-to-them solo dress! It's super cheap!), and I have a second "new" dress on it's way to me. I sent the money order away on Friday, hopefully I'll have it in time for performances on Saturday!
The kids are doing well. Isobel started at a co-op preschool up the street three weeks ago. She seems to be enjoying it but is so overwhelmed with the different centers, etc that she has a hard time focusing. Which is just fine. I mean, after all, she's two. Her talking is kind of hard to understand. OK it's REALLY hard to understand. And she has this new "trick" of sticking her tongue out when she talks. I'm not sure what "thiwi" means, but she sure says it a lot. She has also finally started putting together basic sentences (Hi Daddy, Get it Mama, Emma hurt head owie [for when Emma whacks her on the head]), and slowly forgetting all the sign I told her. :(
Emma is... well... almost four! That blows my mind!!! I cannot believe how old she is getting. She is the size of the 6 year old girl who lives in the building behind us, and the size of most 5 year olds. Very tall. Very smart. Very intense. Very Emma. I love it. I am learning more about how to let her "be Emma" and not trying to push her to conform to what her preschool classmates are doing. It's hard. But, she's a very creative and independent spirit and I have to remember that that is a VERY good thing and keep it that way. Thank goodness for our parent educator at preschool and my mom. They help to remind me of that on a regular basis.
Next year will hold some changes. Isobel will go to preschool and Emma will not. She'll possibly start a dance class or maybe Kindermusik. I'm not sure which one yet. I think dance might be more suited to her need fot constant movement, but Kindermusik might better suit her intelligence level. The jury is still out.
I am changing to a new rheumatologist and have my first appointment this Wednesday. I like my current doctor, but he's so far away and since I don't need much besides prescription refills and the occasional x-ray/bone scan, there's no point driving an hour, waiting for an hour or more to see him, then driving home and paying for parking.... Yeah let's just go somewhere closer!
I also had the privilege of being present at the birth of my friend Jessica's first baby. My original "job" was to be her labor coach, but her labor was SO fast (not to mention 5 weeks premature) that I got there about 15 minutes before Sabina was born. She's gorgeous and perfectly health - albeit tiny. I have been a friend to Jessica throughout the entire journey and I really do feel it was a privilege to be present through all of this. What an amazing family.
On that note, I have nothing else to say. I'm going to focus more on the episode of Stargate Atlantis that I've been too distracted to watch for the past 20 minutes while I typed this up. :)
