1. Audrey had her first dance recital today. Let's just say that fifty 3 year-olds and a 2 1/2 hour dress rehearsal don't mix well. We weren't exactly sure what we'd be in for today after practice yesterday: mostly Audrey just rolled around on the stage floor, picked her nose, and got down on her hands and knees to try and peel up the tape that she was supposed to be standing on for the dance. But this morning she knocked our socks off, following nearly every cue and doing an all around fantastic job. Amazing! (Maybe she's a works-best-under-pressure kind of girl.)
Pix from the rehearsal:
Video of the actual performance: (Audrey is standing just to the right of the girl who's front and center)
2. Have I mentioned that I've finally figured out a (nearly) surefire way to get Audrey to nap every day? Turns out all I needed to do was take a nap with her. Which has been working out really well for this pregnant mama, on all fronts.
3. I'm reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts for book club this month, and it is so challenging. So far I think the quote that has struck me between the eyes the hardest, (and trust me, there have been quite a few of those), is this: "On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur." (quoted from Evelyn Underhill, The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations.) So I've been trying to act less like an amateur this week, slowing down and praying for grace, trying to show more gentleness and less impatience with my girlies. Easier said than done, but aren't we all works in progress?
4. I'm not sure what possessed me to do it, but we went back to cloth diapers this week for Norah. Multiple reasons factored in. I've been feeling progressively guiltier and guiltier with each passing month of not using them, and going back has been getting harder and harder. Since I started cutting dairy out of Norah's diet, and giving her Lactaid when she does have a little cheese, her diapers have become much more....uh.....how do I say this tactfully...manageable. She's also been telling me more and more often when she's going potty, and asking to go on the toilet. (Switching to cloth should speed the potty training process up even more, right? Speaking of which, I'm totally on the fence about whether or not we're actually going to potty train her before this baby comes or not. She's only 22 months old now, but she goes on the toilet 1-2 times a day. She'll be 2 years + 2 months when the baby arrives. Advice? Thoughts? Suggestions?) And we looked through her scrapbook together this week, and seeing all those pictures of her cute little buns all wrapped up in pink FuzziBunz just kind of got me in the mood again. And a friend posted a link on FB to a trailer for the movie No Impact Man, which I totally want to see! But I was still overwhelmed by the idea of going back to cloth completely. So I've been reading a blog about starting small, taking baby steps when you want to make a big change. And the biggest deterrent for me has been the horrible consistency of Norah's poops. So I thought, hey, why don't I just wait until she fills her pants each day, then we can do cloth the rest of the day after that? Half a day is better than no time at all, right? So the first day she pooped her nasty poop in a disposable, and we made the switch. And she cried. She HATED the cloth diaper. She has apparently gotten just as used to disposables as I have. And about an hour later she pooped AGAIN...which never happens! And I had the lovely joy of being introduced back into the full-fledged world of cloth. So after that initiation I just decided to stick with it all day long. Even after a week, I still get lots of "no fanks this diaper, Mommy, no fanks. May I wear polka-dot diaper please?" (Good ol' Target brand is just too cute, I guess. Norah is a sucker for polka dots!) Hard to say no to her sweet little voice. I keep telling her she'll get used to them. And telling myself the same thing. We'll see how long the two of us can stick this out together!
Poor, sad, girl. SO not into doing something good for the environment right now.
And just so you don't think she's miserable all the time, as soon as diaper changes are over, we see lots of this sweet face. Especially when she gets to hold babies. Norah LOVES babies. : )
5. Audrey also had her first haircut this week. I guess it was a big week for firsts! She had the biggest smile on her face the entire time...LOVED every minute of it.
Believe it or not, I didn't take a good before picture AT ALL. This is the most recent shot I have of all her length in the back. It took 3 1/2 years for her to grow all this!
Before, at the salon.
A tad concerned with all the details. (She was FULL of questions about the entire process. Go figure.)
She got over it quickly.
And...the after shots. She kept saying "it feels so light! And it looks so gold!" SO excited about it.
I can't believe how long her legs are getting!
6. This 6 on Saturday is becoming mostly about Audrey. I guess it's been an eventful week for her. I'll end with her latest favorite book to read at naptime and bedtime: the Dictionary. No joke. She has a Children's Dictionary that she's been scouring. She marks her favorite pages with other, skinnier, books, and then asks me to read the definitions that she's been scouting out earlier that day when it's time for bed. Hilarious. One day she picked a page from the table of contents! Sheesh. We are raising "that" child.
