Thanks, but no thanks

What do you call a half hour with eight preschoolers in leotards and ballet shoes? My mom calls it chaos! She says my ballet teacher probably calls it something else...but can't tell me what.

My four-month stint in ballet has made me a bonafide "ballet-berina" (at least according to my own vocabulary) and apparently my ballet teacher needs a hand managing all of that "talent" in one room. So after class on Wednesday she came out and told all the moms in a tired sounding voice that we've taken "a big step backwards" (at least we did it on our tippy toes!) and every mom has to sign up to be a helper for the next couple months.

Then wouldn't you know, my mom gets an e-mail last night thanking her for signing up, but saying something to the extent of, "Oh, you? Jillian's mom? Oh, maybe we don't need that kind of help."

'Cause it turns out the only thing more uncontainable than my enthusiasm for ballet is my enthusiasm for ballet when my mom's in the room. I think it throws all those other ballet-berinas off their game.

Apparently this type of enthusiasm doesn't go unnoticed. Bless my ballet teacher's heart.

Here I am watching the playback. Just to be sure I'm as good as I think I am.

Rowan's rich!!

In antioxidants, that is. The kid LOVES berries. And not in a small way. I think the pictures (and the fact that she's wearing two bibs) speak for themselves.

Financial transaction

I spent this evening transferring my funds to a larger financial institution. Hope I don't get audited this year, cuz I ain't declarin' nunna this!

Birthday bake-off

Tomorrow I celebrate the big 0-3. And what better way to bring in a new year of adventures than some homebaked cupcakes...that my mom has no hand in making!

Today Grandma and I went to the store to buy the fixings for chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. And when mom was busy giving Rowan lunch, we went to work. Grandma knows a lot more about how ovens work than my mom does...thankfully.

"Read faster, Grandma! Mom will be back any minute now!"

"What?? It's my only option if we don't want crispy cupcakes."

Here's Rowan doing her job as "the distraction." She kept mom out of the kitchen long enough to get the cupcakes in and out of the oven. Just for that, first cupcake's for you, my friend.

Ski school drop out

So there may be something to that three-and-a-half policy after all.

Although I was the best (albeit smallest) skiier in my group, right about the time I learned that the big kids don't take naps I told the powers that be that I appreciated their willingness to bend the rules for me but would like to be demoted back down to daycare, and they called my dad.

Or maybe I just cried inconsolably.

Same difference.

Good news from the admissions office

College. They say the day you're accepted into your school of choice is one of the most important days of your life.

My dad might argue that today -- the day I was accepted into ski school six months and three days early -- rivals that day.

Here in Steamboat, the powers that be say you need to be three-and-a-half and potty trained in order to be admitted into the ski school program. And while you could argue more or less that I am potty trained, only a wad of cash and a wink could convince the staff that I'm old enough to participate.


So all week, Rowan and I have been going to daycare on the ski shuttle that I've declared to be the "school bus." Yesterday, though, my mom and dad signed me up for a private lesson -- my only means for getting access to the kiddie part of the mountain with the fantastic kiddie conveyer belt referred to as "the magic carpet."

My enthusiasm for the sport, combined with my incredible sense of balance, convinced those powers that be that maybe you can't put superficial restrictions on talent. So they fudged my birthdate in the system and admitted me on a trial basis to my first day of real ski school. Today's the day!

Now if I can just convince the U.S. Olympic Committee to qualify skiiers in Pull-Ups, I might have me a little trip to Vancouver next month.

Here I am with my teacher, Miss Christy. I'm pretty sure she's good 'cause they named a lift after her!

Aladdin's magic carpet ride's got nothin' on this!

Hey, I even make falling down look like fun!

(Note: Another good video coming as soon as my mom gets home to the video-editing power of her Mac.)

Wake-up call

My mom has come to learn that when dealing with a preschooler, you never know what you're going to get. Comedian or Whiner. Bottomless Pit or Perpetual Faster. Peacemaker or Troublemaker.

But one thing my mom can count on from me is the fact that I will always--and I mean ALWAYS--rise in the morning at a time that is both painful and absurd. Most mornings the internal alarm clock goes off at 6 am, except for one or two days a week (when Mom says the Universe is feeling particularly spiteful) and I'm ready to hit the ground running at 5:30 am.

So you can imagine how she spared not a moment in ordering a behavioral modification night lite that promises to get her a little more quality shut eye. The idea is that when the moon lights up, I know it's time for me to get in bed, and when the sun lights up, I know it's time to get out.


I'll admit that the night lite seemed intriguing as soon as my Mom and Dad took it out of the box. Hoping to create some kind of bond between the two of us, my Mom asked what we should name it...and I finally decided on Mr. Holiday. With a renewed sense of optimism, they set the night lite's clock for 6:30 am.

Chumps.

Like I had a half hour to wait around for a light show.

Yesterday, my mom finally reset it for 6 am (or 5 am Mountain Standard Time, since we're in Colorado). Imagine my excitement when I FINALLY got to see the sun light up. All the sudden, in the middle of the dark, quiet house, you could hear a loud, "Oh Woooooowwwwwww!"

And while it took a bit of finagling at 5:40 am CST (4:40 am MST) today to keep me in bed, I was laying there quietly when "the sun came out" again at 6:15 am. And the whole house awoke to a resounding, "I DID it!!"

I may call that night lite Mr. Holiday, but my Mom likes to call it Hope For a Better Tomorrow.

Gimme a break

The last two weeks of the year are a very exciting time. Christmas and New Years combined with two days where my daddy comes home early and two days when Daddy doesn't have to go to work at all is pretty good stuff. It's tempered, however, by the fact that all of my activities are canceled. No school. No gymnastics. And three days of hard-core potty training meant we left the house even less.

By the end of the first week, my mom said it was questionable whether we would escape this winter break with our sanities in tact. Not sure what that meant, but it sounded serious. We needed a break from our break.

So despite the knowledge that every local preschool hotspot would be overrun with kids just as stir crazy as me, we braved the Children's Museum on Tuesday and a new indoor playground -- The Treehouse -- on Wednesday. We made sure to get to both places right at opening time and felt victorious as we enjoyed ourselves amidst only a handful of other kids. But then thirty minutes went by and it was a preschool mob scene. We needed a break from our break from our break.

As we ponder how to achieve that, enjoy these Treehouse pictures!

War and Pee Pees

More than a year ago, my mom brought home two big girl potties from the store -- an understated, minimalist potty for the downstairs bathroom, and this one:

Combining my love of princesses and music, she thought the Royal Potty was a sure thing.

After numerous half-hearted attempts at potty training, she discovered it surely was not. Turns out this potty's "built-in reward system" -- 5-second snippets of trumpet fanfares -- just wasn't rewarding enough. While I humored her twice by sitting on the potty for more than an hour at a time, reading books, singing songs and occasionally getting up and running pantsless around the bathroom, eventually requests to sit on the potty were met with ear-piercing screams. My diapers were not going down without a fight. It was war.

Eventually a peace treaty was reached. It entailed all the chocolate milk I could drink (because we all know that a kid who downs five cups of chocolate milk is bound to "go" sooner or later...likely sooner), all the lollipops I could eat, and all the stampers I could find space for on my body. By the end of the first day, I had more ink than a Harley convention and a sugar buzz that would take days to burn off. The rest of the details I will spare you, but suffice it to say that I will be going back to school a potty-trained lady.

Cue trumpet fanfare.