Itty-bitty this and that

Miss A was supposed to go to school today since yesterday was our "family day" but we've been trying to get her started with violin lessons and her preliminary evaluation for readiness/first lesson could only be today. It only made sense to keep her home instead of rushing about. At least we have the luxury of keeping her home if we need to, right?

Right before we got ourselves all ready to go, D was outside wedding the flower-picking-butterfly garden. I had just gotten Miss all ready and he came rushing in all excited about something...

Do you see that? It's probably the teeny-tiniest-little praying mantis EVER. AMAZING. He found it on his shirt and we were all enthralled by it.

Miss A was even excited to try and hold it and not smash it! We were very proud of her.

And after we put the praying mantis back, we jumped into the car and headed off to violin lessons right away!

Miss A's instructor is a former colleague of mine and she's just an amazing performance artist and musician! She has assured me that Miss A isn't too young to get started but we are definitely going to have to do a lot of practicing and work with her to teach her the important things like not touching the bow hair and getting it all greased up.

The good news? Miss A was a little shy to begin with but was able to be brave and hold the violin (with assistance and do one of her first major motions which was learning how to pluck the strings!

Before Miss A will be able to use the bow with the violin though, we have to help her learn the proper posture.

It starts with holding onto the violin body in a specific way, lifting it high above your head, and then in one fluid motion, putting it under your chin in a specific way.

Miss A's greatest challenge so far? Not giggling and feeling ticklish under her chin/at her neck when the violin is there. She could barely stand having it in the correct position because she was so ticklish.

We'll work on it with her but in the meanwhile we are just excited that we have been blessed with the means to get her started with this. Hopefully we will have many more encore blog postings and eventually a video of her playing "Twinkle twinkle little star" at one point!

Family day one: Miss A channels her inner Elton John

Today was the first of what we hope will be many "family days" for this summer. D and I opted out of formal summer employment (like what we did last year - NEVER AGAIN!!!) but we are working. Basically, we are both freelancing with the many practical and varied skills we have. Surprisingly, we've both been kept VERY busy since school let out and there doesn't seem to be an end of that in sight. Still? We are doing our best to keep our priorities set right and straight and we have decided to do something we call "family day." It is a day we are setting aside once a week, EVERY week to do things that are very focused on things we will do together.

Today probably wasn't the best family day we could have had but this was only our first stab at it so we're hoping to get a lot better by the next one and then really have it right for all of them after. On today's agenda was the following...

• Take Miss A to get fitted for a teeny-tiny violin for her to start violin lessons
• Enjoy a really decent sunny day making mud pies, picking flowers, running through the sprinklers, and wading in the baby pool
• Finish cleaning Miss A's playroom while D tackled the mess that is our slow drain problem in the laundry room (This was done while Miss A napped.)
• Take Miss A to her first ever ballet class/lesson
• Have an easy going night just hanging out together

Like I said, not the most fun day and kind of of more utilitarian than anything else but I think Miss A had a lot of fun today and the point was just for us to be together and that is something we definitely were.

Here are some pictures to illustrate all of the fun we had.

 

In case you were wondering, Miss A dressed herself. A little on the Elton John side of things if you ask us but we're OK with that. She is her own little canvas for herself and we don't mind it one bit.

The size of her violin is 1/16. I really have no idea truly how small that is since I kind of know little to nothing about violins but it was explained to me that this is the next size up from the smallest and we could have gotten the smallest and have it fit her just right. She has a little room to grow with this one.

We opted for the backpack straps for her vs. the shoulder strap. She was beside herself with shyness about the fact that she could carry it all by herself! Of course, it helped that everyone in the shop - staff and customers alike were fawning over her like she was the tiniest violinist ever made! *wink*

She was allowed to pick an ID tag and (of course) she picked PINK. Don't you just love how the length of the case of the violin is almost as tall as her? I love that! So sweet!!!

Woo-hoo!!! A CLEAN playroom! We managed to scrounge up some reasonably priced (via craigslist and cast offs from some teachers we are pals with) storage options. I don't even care that more and more we look like we live in a kindergarten.

The dog is all about being in the mix of things. Tonight Miss A tried to play Memory matches with him. It didn't work out at all.

They wouldn't let me take decent pictures of her because the parents were too distracting to the kids so I had to take this through a dirty window with disgusting sheer curtains. *sigh*

She did surprisingly well for her first class and we'll go back next week. Perhaps I'll get some better pictures? I don't know.

One of the best parts about this day was that I planned ahead and got some of the most amazingly beautiful pictures of Miss A yet! I absolutely anticipated the fact that I wouldn't be able to get good pics of her in her ballet get-up today (for the exact reasons that were confirmed by the ballet teacher above!) so I got Miss A dressed and took her pics right away at home on our beautiful wood floor with the terrific lighting from our picture window. Being a professional photographer is so handy sometimes!

Note: For the picture before this and after that, I digitally removed (read: photoshopped!) out the press-on tattoos and junky plastic jewelry. My goal was to turn out portrait quality prints! I'd say I nailed it pretty well and I'm happy with the turn out.

And that's it for our first family day of the summer! Other ideas that we might try for a spin are berry picking, trips to see the national monuments, going to the university pool, and trips to animal type places (read: zoos, aquariums, etc.)

Better than putting lipstick on a pig

Last evening Miss A was toddling around and decided to put one of her many necklaces on the dog. She looked at him and then looked at us and proclaimed, "He's BERY pretty!" We were both so tired that we acknowledged it and then just kind of moved on.

This morning, Miss A woke up extra early - BEFORE 630am when her usual is about 730-8 - and woke me up all upset that she couldn't find the cap to this flashlight thing she is currently obsessed with. I pulled her out of bed, convinced her to cozy up on the couch with me, and watch "a show" quietly while I woke the rest of the way up. As I was sitting there half asleep/half awake, I casually glanced over at the dog who had just flopped down on the floor next to us. This is what he looked like...

I just about started choking myself because I started laughing so hard!! We TOTALLY forgot to take the necklace off of him and he wore it all evening last night and then through the night to the morning!!! I think even HE had forgotten he had it on!! And there he sat just sitting there as naturally as ever, like dogs wearing necklaces was completely normal. I mean look at him!

Even now I am looking at this picture and can barely contain the amusement I have with it.

*sigh*

I really hope Miss A continues to do this type of thing. We NEED a "bery pretty" dog around here. What better way to start a day!

Fat dogs and little chairs

Now that Miss A has turned three, it's like she's all of a sudden become so much more entertaining. I mean, not to say she wasn't like that before? But... I don't know. I guess it's one of those things that goes along with the whole "Kids say the darnedest things."

Anyway, I don't have pictures to illustrate these moments but I thought at least it would be fun to record them here. So? Here's the first installment of them. I've got three!!

Overheard/saw this from around the corner of the kitchen... Miss A was setting up some dollhouse furniture in a circle...

Miss A: OKAY!! We can have a TEA party!!!
(Miss A goes over to a chair and attempts to hover/sit on one of them)
Miss A: I'm so big for this chair. I can't fit!

Here's the next one from when we were driving home from the Vet to pick up the dog. He had to have a patch of fur shaved for them to do the necessary procedures.

Miss A: Mama?
Me: Yes, Miss A?
Miss A: He's a fat dog. He's FAT.
Me: Why do you say that?
Miss A: Because he's FAT. He's fat because he has a boo-boo.

And the last one from the other day while I was sitting on a camp chair watching her make mud pies. She walked over to me and handed me a cup of water.

Miss A: Here, Mama. This is for you.
Me: Why thank you!
Miss A: (drops a large pinecone in the cup) That's a bread. (walks away)

Much Ado About Mudpies

I have a photographic memory. (Go figure seeing as how I am a visual artist and professional photographer.) The way I do things is I have see something that I like, take visual note of it, and then mentally file it away in my memory bank to recall later. I can't tell you how often I do this but I can tell you that it feels like it's constant for me. And at any given time I can/will recall ideas or inspiration I've previously discovered and employ them when they are most appropriate.

I don't know when I stumbled upon the idea of a mudpie kitchen but I've been carrying it around with me and wanting to make it happen for a LONG time! D and I have done a lot of thinking about what kind of parenting we want to do for Miss A and a couple of months ago we decided that we were going to offer her less "stuff" and more experiences. Think about it! What do you remember? Do you remember things or EXPERIENCES better? Experiences always endure longer than things. Experiences can rarely they  recreated exactly as they happened and so each is very unique and that much easier to be cherished. It's for all of these reasons that I have wanted Miss A to have a mudpie kitchen.

I've had grand plans for this mud pie kitchen for Miss A. I wanted to make it out of wood and make it look as realistic of a kitchen as possible. I wanted to paint it bright colors and hang signage on it with a really clever and fun name. I wanted to put it on wheels so it could be put into storage easily and relocated within the space of our yard wherever Miss A felt inclined to have it. But you know what they say about best laid plans.

The fact of the matter is sometimes the simplest solution truly is the best. This morning I was getting Miss A ready for preschool and she looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, "Mama? Can I stay home with you today?" I, of course, couldn't possibly say no to her. And thus the perfect day arrived for me to finally make the mudpie kitchen happen!

I present it to you...

And here I've broken down all of the elements that came together to make it...

Out of pocket cost to make this happen? About $15 at our favorite thrift store getting pans and bowls and kid-sized mixing utensils and some pitchers and cups and a small waste basket to hold a small amount of top soil that was bought in bulk for a mere $2 at Walmart. The major "furniture" parts were all upcycled! Two plastic cubes and my old Yaffa block drawer set serve as the cabinetry/counterspace and a Lowe's utility bucket holds more than enough water than what Miss A could possibly use.

To say Miss A was delighted with this set-up would be a gross understatement. Definitely I did this for me as much as her but I'm happy to report that she was super excited about it and it kept her busy her for over an hour.

"Much Ado About Mudpies"

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I set everything up so it was nice and close to the hose and also our butterfly/flower-picking garden - so Miss A could pick things to decorate her pies and cakes. I also made sure she wore her crocs and cleaning her up was a cinch because of them! I certainly didn't want to use plastic but I'll tell you, I'm glad things turned out like this. It makes hosing things off so much easier and I also know there won't be mold and mildew that cakes when I'm trying to dry everything out. Also, whenever Miss A attempted to pour water into her bowls and it would not all make it in, it would all fall through the holes of the crates! Something even better? The white tray snapped right off the top of the yaffa block portion and I sprayed it down in not even 30 seconds and we were good to go!

I love this Mudpie kitchen set up and I just know that we are going to spend hours playing with it this summer.