Ruffled Skirts and Braided Tiaras

It's a beautiful sunny day here; a perfect day for playing outside. I think I'll put Baby E in the exersaucer and let the girls ride tricycles in the driveway while I do a bit of light yardwork.

Baby E and I are still sick, but we seem to be on the way to recovery. We've been sleeping well the last couple of nights, with only two or three wakings. That's so helpful.



Yesterday AJ and MM wore the new skirts I had finished for them the day before.

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The girls are really enjoying their dance and gymnastics lessons. They have been begging for "ballet dancer" skirts, so when I saw ballet-print flannel on the $1-2 sale table at Wal-Mart on Saturday, I had to get some.

There was just a little over a yard left on the bolt, and between that and having only a size 6 of the vintage pattern I wanted to use, I had to do some creative cutting and adjusting of the pattern to get two ruffled skirts out of it. The sewing isn't the greatest, but the girls like them. That's all that really matters.

AJ and MM often beg me to braid their hair. Since braiding is an activity that keeps them quiet for a while and is something I can do while sitting down, I braided their hair in "crowns" while the baby napped yesterday morning. Without pins, the ends keep sliding out where I had woven them in, but the girls look cute.

Next time we're at the store I'm going to buy some hairpins so I can make more elaborate styles. I guess all those hours of sitting with my friends braiding and styling each other's long hair as a teenager are paying off. :)



AJ and MM happily posed for pictures with their new skirts and hairdos. Then I offered to turn on music so they could dance in their ballet skirts. They usually love dancing to music. But, to my surprise, they weren't interested.

"No thank you, Mommy," said AJ. "I don't want to dance. I just want to sit and look pretty."

She did, however, want to play with some new math puzzle cards I got out. I laid out one and said, "What's 4 plus 4?"

Without a pause, she said, "eight."

Surprised at her quickness, I laid out one that said 7 + 4. Immediately she reached for the solution card that said 11. As often happens, I found myself saying, "Wow! When did you get so good at this?!"

AJ matched the rest of her cards while I showed MM how to count out beads in different colors so she could do the problems on hers. Both girls enjoyed the activity while I prepared their lunch.

I'm discovering that MM, in particular, is very much a tactile (hands-on) learner. She isn't particularly interested in circling the pictures that begin with F, for example. But when we cut out all the pictures and she gets to glue the pictures that start with the F sound onto a picture of a fishing line, she gets excited about the activity and puts all her concentration into it.

The last couple of days I've been reminded to treasure and enjoy my children. So many people I know are struggling through health issues with their kids.

Two of the four families from our small group have babies in the hospital right now. Baby C, the son of CreativeCrafty and The Motivator, was born by C-section at (I think) 34 weeks gestation two days ago. At 4 lbs. 1 oz, his prognosis looks good, but he does have to stay in the hospital for a week or two before he goes home.

The other is the 4-week-old daughter of our friends the Malamute Rescuers. Baby H is in the hospital with an unexplained fever and elevated white blood cell count. We're hoping the situation will resolve itself with the help of some intensive antibiotics while we wait for the rest of the tests to come back.

I can't mention sick children without thinking of Moreena and her daughter Annika at falling down is also a gift. In Moreena's words, "We are still in the PICU, but anticipate leaving soon. We will not be leaving because everything is fixed and OK and back to life as usual. . . . the news here is not good."

In a nutshell, 5-year-old Aniika needs a third liver transplant but is not currently strong enough for the surgery. So they will be trying to help her gain enough strength over the next few months to be able to handle another transplant.

I'm so very thankful to have basically healthy children--even if they did just dump an entire Tupperware container of beads out and scatter them gleefully across the playroom carpet.