Charlotte, the Ballerina Princess

For months Charlotte has been asking for ballet lessons. She is one of those children who skip/dances everywhere. It comes far more naturally to her than walking. Whenever she hears a beat she starts to shake her hips to the music. She can't help it.

Every morning I ask Charlotte what she dreamed about. Nearly every morning she gives me a sleepy grin and says "I was ballewina pwincess." Several times a week she wants to watch ballet themed movies on netflix and at least once a week she insists on wearing her ballet outfit all day. Leotard, tights, shoes, the whole nine yards.

This little girl has been dancing, talking about dancing, dreaming about dancing for months.

Yesterday, after I asked Charlotte about her ballerina princess dreams, I informed her that she was to have her first dance lesson later in the afternoon. She gasped, threw her hands to cheeks and said "Oh my goodness!" her new go-to excitement phrase.

Before I could even answer "yes!" she was down the hall in her room digging out her ballet outfit. It was nine in the morning; her lesson started at four, but that didn't matter, she was going to wear that outfit all day.

All day Charlotte followed me around asking "Is it time yet, is it time yet?" until finally it was time. We arrived to the ballet school, met her teacher and my girl giddily bounced on one foot, then the other while she waited for the other two students to line up. She stood next to her teacher and grinned at me while they began their first steps.

She admired herself in the mirror and added extra "Charlotte" flair to all the moves, undoubtedly to make them prettier in her eyes. She did everything her teacher asked of her and we smiled at her from the parents area. Slowly, though, her enthusiasm began to wane.

After about ten minutes of excited participation, Charlotte began to lose her bounce. Another minute and she stopped smiling, a few minutes more and her sashay lost it's sass. Twenty minutes into the class and it was clear my girl was not having fun. She looked at me with pitiful eyes and said "Momma, I'm shy!" as she bolted to where I was sitting.

I stared at her wide eyed and speechless. This was a side to my girl I have never seen. No one has! I am pretty sure anyone who reads this and knows Charlotte isn't going to believe me. I can't believe it myself.

She refused to participate, even though at one point it looked like it was killing her not to be dancing. Halfway through the class we packed up her things and went to the car.

When Lily was her age she really didn't want to do ballet, but tried it anyway. We frequently had issues with her not participating and finally her school (a different one) suggested that she not return for the remainder of her session, or sign up for another one. She participated in one recital, which she screamed so loudly through that the school had to re-dub the recital recording for her class' number.

I can't help but fear that history is repeating itself.

Since this is so unlike Charlotte to be "shy" we will try again next week, but in the meantime Lily was so excited about the class that she is begging me to let her sign up tomorrow. Who knew that, at the end of the day, it would end up being Lily who wants to be our ballerina princess?

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

My baby is four. I can officially say that she is a preschooler. I'm not sure how I feel about that.All day long she has been telling anyone who would listen, "Today is my birfday! I'm fouw now!" Then awkwardly hold up three fingers, look at them for a second, add the fourth digit and then grin ear to ear.

We spent the day at my grandparents house making decorations and whatnots for the upcoming brithday party. I love that not only do we I have my grandparents still, my kids are going to all remember fun times with them. It was super cute how into the crafting my Granny is. That is to say, very.

Disneyland ::Who We Met::

Because you all were dying to know (or because I am too lazy to come up with a better blog post) I will show you a bunch of pictures of my kids in Disneyland without you. We missed you, though! No. Really. 

We managed to go to Disneyland and not see a single Princess. Some would call this a success, but I think my daughters would disagree. Not that they were in the least unhappy with who they did meet. Note to grandmothers: yes, I will be giving you copies of all the pictures; no, it won't happen this week. Soon!

So that this isn't the most boring post ever for everyone else, here is some unscolicited advice: if your kids are at all interested in charaters GO TO A CHARACTER MEAL.

Seriously. It's worth it to be able to sit down, enjoy a mediocre meal and have all the characters come to you. It saved us hours in hunting down characters and whining from our son who couldn't give a rip if he saw a singe one. It also satiated the girls' need for character interaction enough so that not meeting princesses was really no big deal. Wheew!

Our youngest daughter is super into characters even though she kept saying things like "How does the guy see?" "Why won't the guy in there talk to me?" "Is it hot in there for the guy, mommy?" I spent half the time shushing her so she wouldn't destroy other kids' dreams. Princesses, by the way, she completely buys as real because they are "people" not costumes. Hilarious, that kid. And way too smart for us.

Disneyland ::it's a small world::

If you know me at all, you know that I am pretty nuts about Disneyland, which is actually kind of funny because I generally hate places/events with large numbers of people. However, the adorableness that is Disney got the better of me and I am truly in my happy place in the Happiest Place on Earth. Include my family in that scenario and I am over the moon.

We just got back from, quite possibly, the best family vacation ever at Disneyland. We went with Aaron's parents and the kids, my sister, and Aaron's brother's family. One of our best friends and her honey also decided to take their vacation and overlap ours. Our kids are 8, 6, and 3, so I was mildly freaked out that they would be evil monsters for three days demanding princesses and pirates and Jedi and screaming when they didn't get their way.

This did not happen. They were amazing and sweet. Our girls weren't in the least bit disappointed that not a single princess was met and our son was only heartbroken for a second that he wasn't chosen for the Jedi Academy. Besides, they know me well, both my daughter promptly reminded me "There is always next time, Mom!"

As any loyal fan of Disney can attest, more pictures were taken in and of the park than anyone ever needs to see, but I'm going to slowly share them all with you, anyway.

it's a small world

Six!

More accurately, Charlotte is three today, but she has been telling everyone she's six for a month now. We didn't have a party for her since we went to a character breakfast at the Disneyland Hotel while on our vacation last week. The older kids and I have talked about making her sunshine cupcakes for our Sunday night family dinner, which became rainbow cupcakes. 

Then big sister decided to paint a rainbow mural in little's honor. Fruit is easily arranged in a rainbow pattern and viola! normal Sunday night dinner becomes a party.

I'm glad we did it just for the ear to ear grin on her face when everyone sang to her. I think she was too overwhelmed at Disney to really enjoy her birthday cupcake. The smiles last night were priceless!

I don't know what it is about new birthday clothes that transformed her from two to three. She looks so grown up!