Ballet is not for the lighthearted

As I write this, my sweet child is napping away. She had a great morning with Mrs. Leigh Ann and is now probably dreaming about the entire can of chicken noodle soup that she ate. Yes, an entire can.

I had my Friday morning Dance Pedagogy (teaching students how to be teachers) class at KSU and decided to stay and take the company ballet class. Let me just say that it kicked my fat, out of shape, pregnant butt. But this class would have been hard even in my best days of dance. The class was fast paced and the barre was a killer (we repeated everything and then did the other side and then got to stop). But I did the hour long barre and two exercises in center. When we started plies (the first exercises, bending the knees), I wanted to cry because it felt good to be around dancers and chat and hear the beautiful music. But by fondu (slow, melting of the legs and extending them and then repeating it on tip toe), I wanted to cry because my fat, out of shape, pregnant body couldn't control the melting quality and my legs refused to go about 65 degrees and I had to stop and rest because I was so tired. And let's not even talk about how the pelvis wasn't under my center. The sweet college kids told me that I looked great. Of course, many of these same kids are students of mine so you can't take too many compliments too seriously. At least I moved a little.

And now my legs, back (lower and upper) and butt are exhausted and beginning to rebel in pain. I wonder if I will be able to walk tomorrow?

It doesn't help that Ruth is still waking up in the night. We have given up on the one nap a day. When she only gets one nap (like yesterday) she wakes up often in the night. Brian and I were up with her between 2:30 and 3:30 am and we didn't go back to sleep ourselves until after 5am and then up again at 6am to start the day. I guess Ruth is just keeping us in shape for the new baby.

Cute

Ruth is very advanced verbally. Now, I have a friend who has twins who are were jumping with feet off the ground at 15 months (this usually doesn't happen until 2 years old). I have another friend whose daughter is making motor sounds when she plays with toys. Ruth does not do these things. Ruth talks.

If you saw Ruth out of the house you wouldn't hear her say many words. But at the house it is crazy how many things she says and how clear they are. We had some friends over for dinner the other night and they could understand every thing Ruth said (or rather demanded that we do).

This is what happened this morning. I put a shirt on Ruth that she doesn't usually wear very often because it is big. Ruth looked at the flowers on the bottom and said, "cute". She then proceed to say "mirror" which means "listen, you personal taxi of mine, take me to the mirror - Now!" I asked her if she wanted to look in the mirror to see how cute she looked. She answered by saying yes. So I carted her little, vain butt to the bathroom mirror so she could see the baby in the mirror. But this time, rather than just smiling at the baby, she pronounced, "I cute."

You have got to be kidding. This little girl who is not even 18 months old is already touting how cute she is. We have ruined her and we did it in just a little over a year. But Brian pointed out that it was good that she used the word "I" and that it must mean she knows that the baby in the mirror is her. I am not to sure. This same kid also says hi to her paci, her milk, and other strange things and said "bye -bye" to the light on the stairway as we were leaving this morning.

Go figure.

Accident

Brian has been trying to teach Ruth to put her hand up to her mouth when she says "uh oh". Last night at dinner Ruth dropped something on the floor and looked at us like she was in trouble (because, hey, let's face it, usually she is). But it was clearly an accident so I said to her, "It's okay. It was an accident." A few minutes later Brian had given Ruth a big piece of chicken to gnaw on and she purposefully threw the chicken on the floor. Immediately, she put her hand to her mouth and said "Ax-ca-dent!" We couldn't help but laugh.

If it's not one kid it's another

Monday morning Ruth woke us up at 2:30am and kept us up until after 4am. Last night Grayson woke me up kicking me at 4am, and I did not go back to sleep.

Brian has disconnected the desk top and I have yet to learn the new space age way to upload photos to the new wireless device. I promise, photos coming soon.

What a Week

It has been several days since I have updated the blog. Since then, my dad has been in the hospital pretty much the entire time with a kind of tick fever. And apparently he is being pretty mean, partly due to the drugs they are giving him. Brian and I had a much needed date and we had guests in for the weekend.

Late Friday night my friend from graduate school, Erika, and her family came in for a great visit. She has a four year old little boy, who Ruth just loved, and a little girl one month younger than Ruth. The girls had opposing nap schedules and really only got to play together a little on Saturday but shared a most amusing bath time. Her husband Matt and Brian enjoyed playing guitar hero on Saturday night after her son Ashur let them play something besides car races.

It is always nice to catch up with someone who "knew you when" and Erika always has such great insight and it is fun to talk to someone about ballet that has "lived to tell about it". Brian is great at listening and giving advice, but I don't know if he has ever done a successful pirouette. And Erika has.

I have some great photos that I will try to upload soon. Stay tuned.

No teaching ballet for me

Well, I taught last night at the church and it was tough. The girls were nice but it was so hard for me to teach since I have been off and am so much bigger than I was with Ruth.

But today I talked with the director and I will not be teaching there anymore. I am sad that I won't be teaching ballet at all this year but it is better to have a full break than have a bad experience. I am not saying the church would have been a bad experience but teaching when you don't feel good all the time isn't the most fun. I am going to continue at KSU since it is a lecture class.

Ruth and I went to a free music class a the library this morning and she really seemed to enjoy herself. Yet again Ruth wakes up when I am updating the blog.

Friday in Savannah

I will see how much I get to write before Ruth wakes up from her morning nap. I just sweep the kitchen and need to rest.

On Friday, Brian went to the career fair to interview pharmacy students. Ruth and I took the shuttle to a little mom and pop restaurant for breakfast. We decided to walk the 7 or so blocks back to the hotel. We stopped at Forysth Park and took pictures of the fountain. Ruth does not like to pose for pictures but did enjoy saying hi to the many, many dogs we saw. Apparently, everyone who lives in Savannah feels it is important to have a dog and to walk it before the heat gets too thick.

After our photo shoot, Ruth took a nap. When she woke up we had just enough time to play in the pool before checking out of the hotel at noon. We walked a few blocks to a tea room for lunch. You would think a tea room open for lunch in Savannah would have sweet tea. No, they didn't. They had unsweet tea and would bring you this syrup to sweetened it yourself at the table. We all know that if you sweeten tea after it has cooled it never tastes the same. Also, if I am in Savannah I expect some of the best sweet tea that I don't have to make myself. The food was nothing special either.

I pushed Ruth in the stroller through "antique" shops in the historic district. Most of the shops were not true antiques. It was very, very hot and I finally told Ruth that we would go back and wait for Daddy in the hotel lobby. We had an hour to wait but thankfully at that very moment he contacted me to let me know he was on the way back to the hotel. Yeah!

We left Savannah and went to Tybee Island, Ruth slept on the way and Brian and I pulled over for a snack. We checked into our room, ordered pizza and took a walk on the beach. We were really staying on the river side of the island and not the ocean. This was fine. The water was dirty but the small waves were great to swim in on Saturday morning. I was able to lay down in the water holding myself up by my arms and feel weightless without being hit by waves.

But that is Saturday's story that I will relay later.