Dance, Dance, Dance!

Our weekend was all about dance. The three girls have been taking ballet/tap classes for a few months now. When I initially signed them up, we had the opportunity to sign them up to participate in the spring recital, which I jumped on since I've been waiting, like, my whole life for stuff like this, and which turned out to be a most elaborate production of The Wonderful Land of Oz, and which was today (on Father's Day).

Yesterday was dress rehearsal, which turned out to be a really big deal and which took about half the day. The first order of business was to put full make-up on the girls. Quite an undertaking, seeing that (a) I'm no makeup artist, and (b) they weren't digging the whole process.

Here are my beautiful, fresh-faced little girls: Lilah, Daisy, and Annabelle -

They look like scary Vegas showgirls with all that garish makeup, no? But it's theater, you know, and apparently it's important to lay it on thick so it's visible from the stage,

Daisy-

Lilah-

Annabelle-

In costume, waiting backstage for their turns.

Lilah is a Poppy - isn't she the cutest darn poppy you ever did see?

The twins performed in a dance number "He's the Wiz."

These photos and video footage are only from the dress rehearsal, as we weren't allowed to take photos or video during the actual show today. I was blown away by the whole production, though. It was amazing. There were well over 100 kids doing different dance numbers in a 90-minute show, everything from hip-hop to ballet and tap. It was really, really cool.

Dorothy with Toto, the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and TinWoman-

The Wicked Witch-

Lilah is the red poppy standing -

Dorothy and Glinda -

Annabelle and Daisy are the two in the center, closest to the Wizard -

The Graduates

What a year it's been! And hard to believe how quickly it went.

Last night the twins' kindergarten class had a little graduation ceremony. Songs were sung, cheers were shouted, tears were shed (I can't help it!), and diplomas were given out:

Annabelle and Daisy are the two super cute girls in the middle in the black velvet dresses.

Daisy shaking the principal's hand before collecting her diploma -

Annabelle ran up . . .

. . . and ran back as quick as she could. Not liking the spotlight, that one.

Here they are with their lovely teacher at the after-party.

My two big almost-first-graders -

I remember how scared I was at the beginning of the school year. Are they really ready for kindergarten? With late September birthdays, they didn't even turn 5 until after the school year started. Will Daisy's phobia's cause major problems? Will Annabelle be able to sit still and behave and stay focused? Ahhh, I was beside myself with worry about all of it.

But with the help of a wonderful, patient teacher who, throughout the year, saw only the best in my girls, they did beautifully. Daisy has overcome so many of her fears and phobias - it's hard to believe she's the same little girl. And Annabelle thrived on the structure of a daily school routine. They both learned to read and do simple math, they made friends, and they grew up just a little bit.

And now they're ready to take on the world in first grade.

A Big Day

Today was a big day.

I'm sitting here remembering how anxious and fearful I was at the beginning of the school year about how Daisy and Annabelle were going to cope in kindergarten in the face of all their issues. I wrote about it at the time here.

Today was Farm Day for the kindergartners at school. This is a day that has placed dread in my heart for two years, ever since Joey had Farm Day when he was in kindergarten and I realized that Daisy would have to face the same thing when she went to kindergarten. What is Farm Day? Live animals, folks. We're talking chickens and rabbits and a pony and a cow and a number of other farm creatures, trucked in and placed on the kindergarten playground. For two years I've imagined that Daisy would either have to stay home from school when Farm Day rolled around, or she would go to school but refuse to leave the classroom, or at the very worst, grow completely hysterical at the sight of the animals as she is wont to do.

Every day for the last week, the girls have been counting down - with enthusiasm. "Five days until Farm Day, Mommy!" "Only two more days until Farm Day!" I kept wondering if they realized there were going to be actual animals at school on Farm Day. So this morning, as they were leaving for school, Daisy gives me a hug and says, "Don't worry, Mommy, I'll be fine with the animals." Huh? Did somebody do a kid-transplant at my house last night?

Anyway, in a nutshell, Farm Day was a huge success for both of the girls. They both participated fully, even going outside and petting the animals. No tears. No hysteria.

I think back to how scared I was at the beginning of the school year. Daisy uses the restroom at school (she's still afraid of the loud, automatic flushing, but she'll do it if Annabelle goes with her). She's ridden on a school bus for a field trip. And now she's petting live animals.

Okay, she's still scared of our dog, but I'll take whatever progress comes our way.

We also had parent-teacher conferences this afternoon for Daisy, Annabelle and Joey. All good stuff; they're all doing really well academically, emotionally, and behaviorally. Apparently we have successfully fooled the teachers into thinking we are good parents who provide our kids with positive life-experiences that are helping them develop into happy, well-adjusted and successful children ;)

What Your Child's Schoolwork Reveals About Their Personality

Having twins in the same grade and the same class is sort of like a science experiment. I swear, even if these projects from school did not come back labeled with Daisy's and Annabelle's names, I would know whose is whose.

Annabelle is . . . ummmm . . . disorderly. Stubborn. Energetic. She marches to the beat of her own drummer. Clearly.

Daisy is a bit of a perfectionist. Also a people pleaser. Organized, neat, and responsible.

Can you see it?

I truly think it's fascinating to see how much of their personalities come through here. Very interesting stuff.

In other news, we seem to have accidentally stumbled upon a (temporary??) solution to the homework battles with Annabelle: Daisy is now helping her do her homework. (This was not my idea, I swear! I'm not trying to shirk my parental duties here.) Daisy is very self-directed and motivated when it comes to homework (not so much when it comes to things like setting the table, though . . .). She actually enjoys it. When the girls get home from school each afternoon, Daisy is usually raring to go on her homework. The other day, she started helping Annabelle with her homework, and Annabelle was so happy with this arrangement (as was I!), that it's continued every day. I just have to keep a close eye and make sure that Daisy doesn't do it for her.

There is something magical about the bond between twins.

Conspiracy Theory

The twins are in cahoots, I'm sure of it. In fact, I'm pretty sure they've been in cahoots since birth - maybe even since before birth. It's always something with them. I mean, I love them like mad, but I swear . . .

The latest: somebody carved "I love U" into our coffee table today. Okay, the table is trashed anyway, granted. It has 10+ years of mileage on it; it's had more than its share of being pounded on, climbed on, having Hot Wheels driven across it, and so forth. But this was blatant vandalism (even if it is a sweet sentiment). The girls came home from school today, festooned with Valentine's hats and paper sashes and lugging buckets of candy and cards from their kindergarten Valentine's celebration. So I guess they - or, rather, one of them - was carried away by the festive spirit of the whole thing and decided to carve her sentiments into the coffee table for posterity.

Here's where the conspiracy comes into play. When we discovered the carving and demanded to know who did it, what do you think we got in response? "Annabelle did it!" Daisy insisted. "No, Daisy did it!" Annabelle declared. Each stuck with her story. I'm convinced that they set out to create reasonable doubt so that neither would get into trouble.

Smart cookies, those two.

Little Dancers

The girls started new dance classes today:

Tiny Tots dance for Lilah . . .

. . . and a ballet/tap combo class for Daisy and Annabelle.

I love this stuff! I missed out on all this when I was a kid, so I am totally living vicariously here.

(Oh, and check out the insanely long legs on the one instructor in the first pic. My first impression, for a split second, was that she was on stilts, I kid you not.)

This is Lilah's first experience with a dance class, and she really seemed to enjoy herself. This week the parents were allowed to stay in the room and watch; starting next week, we won't be allowed to stay because it's too distracting for the kids. I'm a little nervous about leaving Lilah, but really I think she'll be fine.

The twins have been in dance before (although it's been a while), but it was just a rinky-dink little class through the local Parks & Rec. This is at an actual dance studio and seems a little more . . . oh, I don't know - not rinky-dink. The girls really liked it and are especially happy because their old friend, Ellie, is in the class with them.

Anyway, who can resist a little girl in a tutu?

Doggie Saga

People have been asking me how things are going with Twinkle, the pup. Well, we've had her for . . . what? About 3 1/2 months now I guess. Things are going . . . fairly well. She's a pistol! Really sweet and playful and cute. And a lot of work. Certainly more work than I had anticipated. I mean, I've had puppies before, but it's only recently occurred to me that the last time I had a puppy was before I had any kids! So this is a whole new dimension in a way.

So, let's see. She's 6 months old now. She's not the 3 pound pipsqueak she was when we got her anymore - now she's in the 9 pound range! Which makes me wonder, because we were told she'd be about 10 pounds, full grown, and she's still got about 6 more months to grow. Anyway, she's clearly not going to be a BIG dog.

I'm taking her in this Thursday to have her spayed. I'm hoping she will calm down some after that (but maybe that only rings true with male dogs?). Oh, and speaking of that, it led to an interesting but brief conversation with Joey a couple days ago, which went something like this:

Joey (horrified): Twinkle is having an operation this week? Why?!?

Me: Well, she's getting spayed. It's just a little operation to make her so she can't have puppies.

Joey: Why don't you want her to have puppies?

Me: Well, puppies are a lot of work. And we wouldn't be able to keep them, so then we'd have to find homes for them, and it's just better this way. Gypsy got spayed, and Saylor got spayed, and Goliath . . . well, he was a boy, so he got neutered.

Joey (contemplative): Why does a boy dog have to have an operation like that? Boys can't have babies anyway!

Me: Go ask your father, I'm sure he will be happy to explain it to you.

Anyhoo. So after Twink is spayed, she's getting signed up for puppy military school obedience training STAT. The girl is wild! Really, no more so than your average, frisky puppy, but man. The energy. The not following a single command. I think she's taking her cues from the kids.

She's a good dog. She'll be a better dog when she has some training under her belt . . . er, collar. Oh, and she yaps. When she wants attention. Which is extremely annoying. Mighta been a deal breaker, actually, had I known. I'm hoping to break her of that.

I don't mean to complain. She's a keeper. She just needs some refining is all.

As for the kids, you may recall that we were hoping that having a dog live in the house with us would cure Daisy of her dog phobia. Umm, it hasn't. Yet. (This I throw out there to anyone who has ever told me "Oh, she just needs to be exposed to dogs more!" Yeah.) She's gotten better . . . sort of. I mean, she'll be in the same room with the dog, but she refuses to get down on the floor with her - she must be up on a higher level where the dog can't reach her. (I've actually resorted to trying to bribe her: "Daisy, if you get down on the floor and play with Twinkle for 3 minutes, I will take you to the store and buy you a new dress, today." No dice.) And her phobia has spread to Annabelle, who initially was NOT afraid of the dog. But now? Now Annabelle screams her head off if the dog so much as looks at her and is uncrated.

Sigh.

Lilah, on the other hand, loves her some Twinkle. She loves to pick her up and haul her around. And the Twinkster lets her, which is good I guess. They're buddies.

Finn, thankfully, is not afraid of her. He gets annoyed and upset when she nips and jumps at him (which she does playfully), but he's pretty tolerant and seems to enjoy her quite a bit, too. And he's figured out how to open her crate (yayy, fine motor skills!) and let her out. Which makes her feel even friendlier with him, I think.

So there you have it. Dog days.

How Paper Snowmen Became the Bane of My Existence

This week, in addition to the usual homework of journal-writing exercises and worksheets, the twins each brought home two paper plates accompanied by a note from their teacher that they were to create snow-people out of them.

Oh fun! An art project! (Imagine sarcastic tone.)

Okay, let me just say that I really, really, really, really do not agree with or understand the point of kindergarten homework. It's kindergarten! Sure, it's an important learning year - my goodness, they're learning to read, which is amazing. But they're still little, immature kids who tire easily, get bored easily, and in my estimation, should not be made to sit down and do more school work at home after having already spent several hours at school. And honestly, I don't want to spend the time I have with them breathing down their necks, setting timers, and entering into battle with them over homework. It's kindergarten! And we have plenty of things to battle over already. Like putting their dirty clothes in the hamper and eating their vegetables and not picking their noses.

However, since I don't have the time, the energy, or the resources to fight the system and change an entire policy, this is how we spend our afternoons: doing homework. And it's almost never a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

The snowman project started out okay. I stapled their paper plates together and cheerfully laid out a plate with raisins, Cheerios, and various sundry with which to create their snow people. I refuse to become too involved - I'm not going to decorate their snowmen for them (even if I could do a fabulous job). I don't want to be their teacher, I want to be their mom, so I try to just play the role of a consultant. Still, I end up being referee, because it was only a matter of minutes before they were fighting over glue and raisins. It escalated to the point that it was clear that we needed to put the snowmen away for the day (and the girls still had their journal pages to write and their worksheets to do).

This scene played out exactly the same for three afternoons running. Actually, Daisy, who is more self-directed than Annabelle, finished her "snow princess" on the second afternoon. Annabelle dawdled and became frustrated and demanded more time, more things with which to decorate her snow person, and I steadily grew to hate that damn snow man/person. I was extremely close to committing snowmanslaughter and chucking it into the garbage more than once. Every afternoon ended in tears and a mess of glue and glitter and stuff at the kitchen table. Finally this afternoon, I called it a day on the whole snow man project. Enough is enough. Here are the final results:

Annabelle's - the one that took THREE afternoons - is the one on the left. I don't know if you can tell, but it's almost bare. I'm almost (but not quite) embarrassed to send this to school with her tomorrow. It's not that she's not bright, and it's not that she doesn't have the ability - it was just a frustrating, stressful proposition. And honestly? Honestly, I have wracked my brain, and I still don't get the point of it. What skills or knowledge was this supposed to reinforce?

I'd like to tell her teacher how tough this was. How utterly stressful. I've already talked to her about the problems I have getting Annabelle to cooperate with homework, and she suggested some strategies which were helpful for a while, but Annabelle is balking even at those now. And I'm afraid that if I keep bringing up the problems Annabelle has with homework, she's going to be labeled a Problem Child, and that label is going to follow her for her entire school career. Okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

But really, what is the point of homework for kindergartners???