:-)

The Beginning of the Beginning of the End

There is going to come a day when Alexis calls me to complain. She's going to complain about how having kids sucks up all of her free time and can you believe those other parents at that thing and how did she end up with a kid who loves THAT and it's going to go on and on.

I will listen.

And I will smile. Then laugh.

And I will send her this post.

Because this, THIS marks the beginning of the crazy.

Alexis has been dancing her entire life. She's had her ups and downs, but at the end of the day, she loves it. She has been asking for a very long time to love it more by joining a competitive dance team. I mostly ignored her because she's little (yet big) and she has plenty of time for taking things seriously. Then she was invited to audition for the competitive team at the place where she goes for dance class and blah, blah, blah.

She beat me into submission.

I let her audition, but I made it VERY clear that she shouldn't get too upset if she didn't make it. It was more of a practice run for when she was a little bit older and a little bit more ready for taking dance very seriously.

All of the discussions about not making it were needed, by the way. This wasn't the sort of audition that everyone gets. It's not actually a cover for "we would like to take more of your money, please." Of the 21 girls who were at the audition, it looks there are quite a few who didn't make the cut.

Alexis is the youngest girl who made the team.

So she's really super excited about that. I'm WAY happy for her because it's fantastic that she set a goal and then worked her butt off to achieve it.  It's all good stuff.

But we all know this is the beginning of the crazy. A more hectic schedule. A significant shift in the specialness of the dance moms. And ZOMG so much dancing and glitter and sparkles and tap tap tap tap tap tap spin tap.

Hold me.

Splish Splash

The first signs of the obsession showed up early. When Mila was just a few months old, she had her first trip to the beach. It ended with a ton of time in the ocean. While she wasn't old enough to smile just yet, she was old enough to happily dangle her feet in the water until the rolling waves lulled her to sleep.

Fast forward (like, seriously, FAST forward because that year went FAST) and that kid is most definitely a water kid. Bath time is a reward for her. It's a time when she will happily sit and splash and kick for an hour, if you happen to have the time to sit and watch her.

Which, you super need to watch her. She's crazy and stuff. There was a time when she got carried away with her kicking and splashing and lost her balance, landing herself with her face under water. Despite the fact that I was RIGHT THERE and had her out of the water in a flash, I FREAKED OUT. We are talking total and complete scared mess territory.

Mila laughed.

Because it's funny to see your mom freak out about you (not) drowning, I guess.

All of that is to say it would be super swell to take Mila into a pool. She would LOVE to be in a pool. Which, we have a pool, but it's still in pieces in the drive way because of timing and the weather and all of the work that is required to level the spot where it belongs. I have hopes that said pool will magically find itself fully operational in the next week.

We shall see.

In the meantime, Mila is managing to find ways to enjoy water in all of the best places.

Like the sprinkler.

Find me another baby who is ECSTATIC to shove her face all the way up against the sprinkler over and over and over again. Seriously, find me one. Mila needs a soulmate.