Confessions, Pt 3

This conversation took place between myself and, we'll call her Sharpay.

Sharpay: "My daddy was in the hospital."

Ms. Sarah: "Oh no! Is he all better now?"

Sharpay: "Yes, he was very, very fat and they sucked all the fat out of him and now he's skinny"

At this point in our conversation, I wondered, had I ever met Sharpay's dad? Did Sharpay's mom seem to be the type where it wouldn't be strange at all for her to be married to an extremely obese man? I quickly discovered, I don't know. And I moved on.

Ms. Sarah: "I'm so sorry he was in the hospital, is he home now?"

Sharpay: "No, he's out of town for 2 weeks, and then he'll come home."

hmmm...not so sure the facts are coming at me straight here...

Sharpay: "He swallowed a quarter and they had to cut a line in his tummy to get it out"

again, hmmmm....what REALLY happened here? I must ask Sharpay's mom.

After class, Sharpay's mom informed me that the little 4 year old completely made everything up. Well, except for the out of town for 2 weeks part.

I've got to give her AND her mom kudos.

To her mom for having her in a perfect class to nurture and grow this extraordinary imagination. She is in out Theater Arts Class, where we add theater arts and movement to the ballet and tap class. Sharpay thrives in this class.

Kudos to Sharpay for coming up with the most elaborate stories and having me hook, line and sinker. Her mom says she's concerned about Sharpay as a teenager, but I look forward to it. She is going to be BEAUTIFUL, dramatic, funny, silly and FUN! That's my prediction anyway.

Oh and for those of you who were completely confused by the Sparpay reference: Sharpay is a character in High School Musical. And "our" Sharpay LOVES High School Musical. In fact today, while playing the princess game, she was pretending that Troy her "crush and boyfriend" was in the castle.

GattiLand

Melissa and Adam went on a date tonight, so Mom was going to watch the kids. Mike and I suggested taking them all to GattiLand! None of our kids have ever experienced a pizza buffet, so they were super excited.

We ate in the cartoon room and the kiddos loved it!





Jude and Addison kissing! You just know I HAD to add this one!



Dinner actually lasted much longer than I would have expected. They knew game time was as soon as they were done. Eventually, Abigail sloooowly finished her meal, and it was off to play!

*editors note: in hind-sight, I should probably have second thought the white t-shirt to a pizza dinner. These are some adorable pictures, just look past the dirty clothes, and the dirty faces, please. And boys sure are just dirty in general, as you will see in these pictures. Thank you*

First was the merry go round

Abigail, 4 1/2
Jude, 3
This was her say "cheese" moment


Micah didn't get to ride the merry go round, so he drove a big red car!




Uncle Mike and Jude
Backing into the next game she wanted to play

All of the cousins played this game- a shoot the dinosaur game! They all loved it!

The "Real" Housewives

Anyone else watch "The Real Housewives" series on Bravo? I love to hate it. Or hate to love it? Regardless, I record it and watch it every week.

If I could be a "real" housewife, I would totally be a NYC housewife. The OC cast is just too... plastic? They all have big fake hair, big fake boobs, and like, their social lives consist of backyard barbeques. The NYC housewives have lives I'm not ashamed to admit I wouldn't mind having. Their social agenda consists of parties in the Hamptons, Fashion Week, charity events, and all things socialite. I love it. And they are all seemingly educated successful women. I'd totally join their cast. You know they would add me in a heart beat. I'd fit right in.

Did anyone see the Atlanta season? Now there is some good bad tv. Love. It. Foreal. Talk about a love/hate relationship with a tv show. There are no words to describe my adoration and simultaneous disgust with this show. Self-proclaimed "Atlanta elite". Who I found through some thorough on-line research (don't judge!) are mostly broke and totally faking it for the show. The scandal! They renewed it, and when the new season starts, I highly suggest you give it a chance. There's really no better way to feel better about yourself.

The OC reunion is on now, and a new NYC episode just after that. You KNOW my dvr is all up on that. And I will be too in 3, 2, 1...

In case you were curious (?)

I was talking to my girlfriends the other night, (holla to my girls), and we were talking about baths. Scintillating, I know. I told them my bath "process" and I was told I should "totally blog about that". Maybe it's interesting? I doubt it. But I'll do it anyway.

I take a bath pretty much every night. I do this mostly because I hate our shower. But I also love my baths, so it works out well. I do the same thing every night. Light one candle, turn on the night-light and catch up on celebrity gossip via my blackberry. The nights that I wash my hair I have a strict routine. The timing of this is essential, and after years of bathing, I have it down to a science:

I fill the bathtub and soak- head to toe, for as long as I want or as long as time will allow. After I have done the whole clean, shave, etc. process and am ready to get out, I put shampoo in my hair and start to drain the bathtub. I then turn the water on and wait for it to get back to a comfortable temperature (it is always so COLD at first!). By that time the tub is about 1/3 full still, so I am still warm. I rinse the shampoo, quickly condition, and by the time I am finished rinsing the conditioner, the water has completely drained. I then do a quick all-body rinse off and voila! Sarah is clean!

There ya have it. The secret to my success.

She did it!

I promised to keep both of you posted, ha! I'm hilarious!, anyway, excuse me. I promised to keep you posted, so here is an update.

Addy poo pooed on the potty! We were just playing in the living room, and she said her "poo poo" and was trying to take her diaper off. So we asked her if she wanted to sit down on her potty, she said yes, we sat her down, and... poop!

I wanted to take a picture of the poop, because I am SO proud of her! But then I reminded myself that I am not a crazy person so I changed my mind. I don't have any pictures of the poop. Kate Gossling, Jon and Kate plus 8, did take pictures of each of her kids standing next to their first poops. So I'm not the only crazy one.

So, "potty training" is going well. I mean, really, all we were doing is letting Addy sit on her potty whenever she wants to. If she doesn't want to, we don't push it at all. But we had success today!

Yippee!

Ya wanna know what I'm doing right now?

I am sitting in bed, enjoying a slice of Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake. Given to me last night (Valentines Day) but I got too full on sushi to give the cheesecake the respect and time it deserves. Tonight is the night. Sadly, the strawberries are not with us tonight, but we'll be just fine.

Potty?

I'm gonna be frank in this email. The words poop, pee, poo poo, pee pee and potty will all be used. They are exactly what this post is about.

Okay. First off. Addison has always battled potty problems. She is on miralax daily, because she tends to stay on the constipated side, and pooping has never been easy for her. She was very constipated for a while, and one too many times of it hurting to poop has caused her to hold it in every time now. She's had lots of rashes, poor baby.

Moving on... Lately Addison has been announcing all of her poo poos and asking for a diaper change. She tries to get her diaper off. If we tell her it's time for a diaper change, she runs to her changing station and asks for her "hiney"/ aka Happy Hiney diaper cream prescribed by her doctor. This has been going on for a while and I've started wondering if it might be time for us to start potty training. I would have never thought that I would try before she was two. It's something that I've been very nervous about and was just fine putting it off for a while. But, after reading up a bit and talking to a few people, it sounds like she might be ready!

So, get this. We bought a little training potty. And when we took it out of the box to show it to her, she took her pants off and diaper off, and sat down on the potty all by herself. She just did it. All by herself! She knew to take her diaper off... I just think it's crazy that she might be potty training now!

She never did pee in the potty. She peed right next to it and that devastated her. You could tell she really wanted that to be IN the potty, not on the floor!!

I guess I'll keep you updated. All two of you. Keep checking in.

Sesame Street Live

Oh, boy, were Mike and I excited to take Addison to Sesame Street Live. We just knew she was going to love it. And we were absolutely right. She loves Elmo and so many other characters, and was so excited to see all of them LIVE!



It was lots of fun. All of the characters were there, and they had some really cool hip hop moves! For real! I thought the dancing was actually pretty good!

Addison danced along!



She also very serious in her observation. She was soaking up all the details.

Leaning in for a closer look.

One of her favorites, Oscar!

I am pretty sure we will take her again when they come back. Oh, and we are for sure taking her to see Princesses on Ice. She is ALL about Cinderella right now. And dress-up. I need to blog about one of her dress-up days, but I never get any good pictures. I will soon, I promise. It is very cute.

Make-ahead recipes?

Any suggestions for dinners that I can prepare in advance for Mike and Addison to enjoy while I am at work in the evenings? I am so tired of her being offered, and subsequently rejecting, chicken nuggets, a frozen veggie and pasta. I think she's tired of it too.

confessions, pt 2

"Good morning Ms. Sarah, my name is _________"
"Do you have any news today, _______?"
"Yes. I have another mommy. She lives in a castle. She's a mean mommy." I later overheard her friend asking her questions about her other mommy. She said to her friend "She has one hundred eighty thirty babies."

Confessions of a pre-schooler

At the beginning of every dance class I have the kids stand up one at a time and say:
"Good morning (or afternoon) Ms. Sarah, my name is ..."
I then ask them if they have "news". News varies from kid to kid- and I have heard some cuh-razy things from these kiddos over the years.

I have decided to use my blog to share some of these stories with you. I am going to keep the kids names anonymous, because some of these stories would MORTIFY their parents. If they only knew what their kids were telling people behind closed doors!

I have two different "stories" to share today. The first actually was told in class tonight, the second was a few months ago but deserves a mention.

Tonight: (from a 4 year old class) This one just made me laugh :)
"Good afternoon, Ms. Sarah. My name is _____."
"Do you have news today?"
"Yes. Today I bit my brother and my mommy didn't know, so that was good. But then my brother told on me and my mommy sent me to time out. Mommy didn't know, but I was happy to be in time-out, because I could see the tv from time-out and Hannah Montana was on."

And, an even better one from another 4 year old class a few months ago...

"Good morning, Ms. Sarah. My name is ________."
"Do you have any news today?"
"Yes. My daddy got diarrhea in the kitchen."
"Oh, no. Well, that's enough news for today."
"It was so smelly, we had to go to the play room. And it was still so smelly in the play room. Mommy was mad at Daddy and made him clean it up. It still smells it in the house."

Is that not the grossest? I mean, really.

Kids say the darndest things.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

I'm putting this in writing. So that I can hold myself accountable.

I am going to put every bit of energy I have this week into being a good business owner. I hate that I neglect the studio when Addison (and I!) gets sick. Scratch that. I hate that I feel guilty when I neglect the studio when we get sick.

I will teach all of my classes. I will order my extra costumes. I will set the studio's summer schedule. I will pay my bills. I will register for our upcoming competitions. I will figure out my recital routines.

These are all things that I am behind on since I stayed home with Addison for the majority of last week.

So. I am not going to neglect any part of my life in doing these things. I am just going to do them. Period.