Yesterday was Paige’s big ballet recital. We went into it with low expectations because technically she’s only had 3 hours total of ballet practice if you add up all her lessons. She was amazing!!!! Seriously amazing! I often think Paige isn’t the most graceful child, but comparing her to the other three and four year old kids…she fit right in! So back to the performance…they did the cutest little routines standing in lines, then they formed a circle and had a little individual time, then they did leaps and skips across the stage one at a time.

I’m torn between my favorite parts of the performance: Paige’s big smile on stage or Drew shouting from his seat “there’s Paige-y! She’s great!”

So in case you’re wondering: yes, we’re definitely continuing with fall ballet with the same instructor and now I’m convinced we’re going to have to work tap into the schedule too.

Uuggg. So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about vision since the circus with Paige on Friday. What can she see…what can’t she see? She can definitely make out what’s happening on Clifford on TV. But Clifford is a BIG RED DOG! Could she see the circus? Anyways…we are supposed to start swim lessons on Monday and it all of a sudden occurred to me that the harsh chemicals in the swim school might not be the best for their glasses. So I called Eyemasters and spoke to my peeps over there (still very impressed with customer service at Eyemasters) and they said absolutely not should their glasses be worn in swimming pools. Oops Eric! We’ve been taking them into our pool at home! The chemicals can destroy the UV coating on the lenses and the lenses are porous which means the chemicals from the pool can get in there and make the lenses cloudy. Uuggg. So Eyemasters doesn’t carry swim goggles or know of a place where we can get them. I seem to recall our earlier place carrying prescription swim goggles for kids…but I don’t want to go back there. And I was thinking that going swimming without floaties in a new place is going to be intimidating enough for the kids, then add to that taking away their ability to see? Yikes….scary!
Do any of our readers have any recommendations on where online to order swim goggles from? And is it ridiculously expensive? We do live in AZ and I was planning on keeping them in swimming year-round so I don’t feel like this would be a fluff item. I can’t imagine buying them swim goggles every time their prescription changes too…..did we mention prematurity sucks? Could be worse….could be worse……
Breathe Eric…breathe.

Today was the circus. It was not the circus of my past. This circus was like a cirque de soleil (sp?) show. Lots of singing, dancing, lights, oh yeah..and a little circus action. Drew loved it, he was pointing to various things, clapping and taking it all in. I honestly couldn’t tell if Paige and Cole enjoyed it. They looked like deer in headlights the whole time and I tried to talk to them during the show and they wouldn’t talk back. Stunned into silence. Our seats weren’t the greatest, we were in the last row…so I’m not sure what Paige was able to see. Her head was cocked during the show and she was looking out the periphery of one eye. (yes, eye appts have been booked for August).

So in other fabulous news: Eric and I were able to get out for a 104 degree tennis date this afternoon. We played for 30 minutes and thought we were going to die. But it was really nice to be out together (and I smoked him on the court so that made it even better).

This summer is going soooooo well, the kids and I are having a blast. Too much fun to blog. So here’s a two second update: Paige and Cole started summer school this week. It sounds so weird when I tell people that. Like they failed preschool and they’re making up for their delinquencies in summer school. Kidding. It’s a new special program just for three year olds to try and entice other three year olds to attend our amazing preschool. The class size is 7 kids this week, and five kids next week. Paige and Cole go for 4 hours a day, T-Th for two weeks. That is a LONG time to be away from the nest, but they love it and it’s super nice just having Drew and Owen at home. We were supposed to be potty training Drew this week and next while we can give him the individual attention needed for it…but I’m kind of changing my tactics for Drew. For some odd reason, maybe him being a different kid, or it not being imperative for him to go to preschool, I just don’t feel like pushing him. He’s definitely showing a lot of interest on his own and I’m just kind of rolling with his desires and hoping he gets it soon. I just don’t want this to be an all-consuming battle of wills where I’m cleaning the floor every hour. No thanks. We’ll see. He actually will tell us that “he needs to use the potty to go to school. And that Mrs. S will be his teacher if he uses the potty. And won’t Mrs. S be so happy when he uses the potty”??

Other news: circus tomorrow. The kids are pumped. We did go to the Imagination Avenue place on Monday. What a fantastic place!! What a great concept! I can’t say enough great things about that place. They were very accomodating to families…benches for breastfeeding, lunch on site, a special baby zone for Owen to play, and all the cool things for the toddlers!! We’re going to try and go once a week until they close.

Kindermusik is over. I will resume it with Owen once he gets a little older, but the older kids outgrew their classes. I didn’t say that right….the older kids can no longer go in a class with Drew. Their age difference once again separates them. But that’s okay because we are going to use the music funds to take swim lessons once again. We start on Monday and this is really a great thing. We don’t know how to swim at all and the kids don’t want to go in without their swim circles. Cole doesn’t even want to get his big toe wet anymore. I don’t know where that water aversion came from! He was doing great by the end of last summer. So maybe he just forgot how much fun swimming is. I got Paige and Cole into a class all by themselves and Drew is still young enough that he needs parent participation for his advanced toddler class.

Think that’s it. Got to go!

Happy Father’s Day to our favorite poopie monster horsie ride Daddy!! Inside joke. We love you!