Mary

I really made a concerted effort this Christmas to talk to Harper about Jesus and the true meaning of the season. We read lots of books about the Christmas story. We sang lots of songs about the Christmas story. Harper even got a nativity set to play with. Well, all of that talking, reading, singing and playing must have rubbed off.

Since Christmas, Harper has been obsessed with Mary. She wants me to call her Mary. She even takes her baby dolls and puts them under her shirt and tells me that she is going to have a baby and name him Jesus. One of the more common manifestations of her obsession is her "Mary Hat". She puts her blanket over her head and proudly announces that she is wearing her Mary Hat.

All of this is fine and good. I'm glad to know she's listening to me when I talk to her about Jesus. 99% of the time I think it's cute. But that 1% of the time when we're at the grocery store and she pulls her baby doll out from under her shirt and tells the deli counter lady that she's Mary and this is her baby Jesus...that makes me a little uncomfortable.

Pink Runoff

Dance is slowly but surely making its way into every area of our life. Harper wore this to school today.

It came in the mail from Grandma (along with another tutu that will probably be making an appearance soon). One of first thing out of Harper's mouth this morning was "Grandma sends the best presents."

Mom, Don't Take My Picture. I'm Busy.

Last night's dance class was a success. A little more tapping and lots of ballet-ing.

Lessons

Harper had her first dance lesson last week. It was... ummm... interesting. Good, but interesting.

The first half hour of the class is devoted to tap dance. Harper basically stood still for the entire 30 minutes. She was watching what everyone was doing, but not really participating. At all. This made me very anxious. I wanted to swoop in and reassure her. I wanted her to have fun. She was so excited to start dance lessons that I was just certain that she would instantly take to it.

After 30 minutes, the class takes a 5 minute break so the girls can change into their ballet shoes. While I was putting Harper's shoes on, I asked her if she was having fun. She said "Oh, yeah! I love it!" Hmmm... Well, after encouraging her to participate a little more, I sent her back in to the rehearsal space.

To my relief, the ballet portion of the class went much better. She still watched her teachers intently, but this time, she also tried all of the moves. She especially got into the free dance time at the end of the class (the teacher just puts on some music and the girls can dance around how ever they want). All in all, she said that she loved the class. She loved it so much that she didn't want to go home. There may or may not have been tears when we left.

If parenting is teaching me anything, it's teaching me to be flexible. As well as I think I know my kid, she is still very unpredictable. I had this vision of how I thought this dance class was going to go and when it wasn't happening the way I thought it was going to happen, I panicked. Harper, on the other hand, apparently had everything under control. Already, I think she's pretty good at scoping out situations and feeling comfortable approaching things at her own pace. She has her second class tonight. She's super excited about it. And so am I.

And Herein Lies The Difference...

Some kids nap with stuffed animals. My kid naps with sparkly pink shoes.

Snow

We've been having our share of snow here in Nashville. Monday gave us several inches and we've been getting a little more every day since then. I'll admit that it's kind of pretty. But, I'll take sand any day over snow.

Harper's kind of partial to it. She thinks it's pretty and tastes good. Don't worry. We've had the yellow snow discussion.

We have a great sledding hill in our back yard. It's so great that all of the neighborhood kids flock to our house to play on it. At the crack of dawn. When it's still dark out. Seriously. But it's ok. They're having fun and they let us borrow a sled every once in a while. Here's Harper's first time down the hill.


Did you catch how the worried grunts turned into a wow at the end? That makes me happy.

Another Day At The Office

A mom of one of the little boys in Harper's class sent me these pictures this morning. It was her son's birthday and she stopped by the class to bring some donuts and snap some pictures. 

Her son, Andrew, is one of Harper's best buddies. In fact, Harper often tells me she's married to him. When I ask her what she means by that, she tells me that Andrew took her to town and gave her flowers. Fair enough.