Backyard "Chalking"

I love our backyard. This is probably only the beginning of your hearing a lot about how much I love our backyard and our deck, especially this summer. Seriously, though, this backyard thing is brilliant.

Sarah loves it too. Yes, she also loves wearing butterfly wings, why do you ask? She also loves "chalking" on the little patch of cement at the bottom of the deck stairs. We spend a lot of time doing this. Oh, and about those "weeds." Well, some of them really are weeds. Tricky things get big quick here in Missouri with plenty of both rain and sunshine recently! But see the tall skinny things? Those are wild onions (chives?), of all things! I love to pull them up and smell the roots--heavenly. Actually, our whole yard does have the faint scent of onions. David thinks I should try to harvest them and cook with them, but I am not so sure . . .

Sarah is also a fan of the dandelions.

"Hmmm, what shall I draw next?"

Mest

Sarah and I reading a library book in a "mest" of her building.

"Mest" is one of David's and my favorite words that is a part of Sarah's 3-yr old vocabulary, if not necessarily one of my favorite concepts, per se. You see, she thinks the words "nest" and "mess" are actually the same thing. And she loves to build them all over the house. Particularly in her own room, but in Sarah's opinion anyplace is a good place for a mest. And so, because of the confusion of these two words/concepts, she can tend to equate messiness with coziness. In fact, she cried last time I cleaned her room. So, I am trying to be more intentional in teaching her the value of neatness. Still, I love her creativity. I love that she likes to create cozy little places. And, lets face it, most of the time our home is kind of a "mest." I'd say Sarah fits right in here!

Ballerina

We have a little ballerina on our hands! Sarah's reward for potty training was getting to take an 8-week ballet and tap class at a nearby YMCA. Potty training had been, ahem, a work in progress for a looooong time, most of this year in fact, when my mom came up with the idea of a ballet class as a reward/motivation to help Sarah get serious about using only the potty. Aren't moms the best? They come up with just the right play at the right moment, winning the game. You were MVP of this one, Mom!

Sarah doing a little ballerina twirl.

This is a girl who LOVES to move. Loves it. The only time she isn't moving is when she is sleeping. And she loves dancing. And moving and dancing all while wearing frilly pink clothes? Pretty much a dream come true for this one!

Also, its a very good opportunity for this one to learn a little about authority figures who aren't mom and dad (this is the first time she's ever had a "teacher!"), and about following directions. She has had 2 classes thus far, and she has done pretty good at listening and following directions. Well, pretty good for Sarah, at least. She did better the first class, only directly disobeying directions twice when she just couldn't hold it in anymore and wait for her turn to go skipping across the studio. For those of you who know Sarah, you know that 2 times in 45 minutes is, like, amazingly good behavior for her. Before we went to that first class I pretty much drilled it into her head that she must, must, MUST listen to the teacher and follow directions. I feel like she actually took it pretty seriously, which I was glad about.

The second class, last Saturday, I forgot to really drill it into her about following the teacher. She did OK, but there were several notable exceptions. Like when the teacher was demonstrating how to point your toes and Sarah ran up to the teacher and *gently* and playfully kicked her in the foot she was pointing. Or when they started the tap portion of the class and Sarah, wearing her tap shoes for the first time, just couldn't keep herself from stomping and tapping as loud and as fast as she could even as the teacher was explaining this was the most important thing NOT to do if they were ever going to learn any actual dancing in the class. Or when they were supposed to be learning to do plies and instead Sarah was jumping up and down, her energy and excitement overflowing. At one point, the teacher (who definitely knew Sarah's name right off the bat) looked at her and said, "Sarah, I've got your number little girl!" Thankfully, this teacher seems to have a lot of patience and experience dealing with over zealous and headstrong little girls.
So, we've still got some things to work on in the listening and obeying department. But I think/hope dance class is going to be a great motivator and chance to practice those very skills.