Dancerina.

Eleanor's dance class photos were today, at ONE FIFTEEN IN THE AFTERNOON and Joel was working so obviously I had to bring Geneva, who has skipped her nap twice this week and been consequently HORRIBLE for it. But oh well dance photos cannot take themselves.

Putting mascara on a four-year-old is DIFFICULT. This is why pageant moms are so bitchy. I could hear myself saying things like Now don't touch your face HEY STOP TOUCHING IT but my eyelids are itchy I SAID STOP TOUCHING IT.

You'd never know it from that picture, but she did not care for the lipstick. Here she is holding her mouth Very Carefully because it feels weird.

Geneva spent the entire photo session running around the dressing room and making coy advances on the 'big baweenas.' Dozens of middle-grade girls in fancy dresses! A toddler's dream.

Eleanor has this enormous fake hairpiece that she wears in addition to the make-up and the hair flower. I thought it would look heinous but it actually kind of looks like a massive sloppy bun, which is my favorite kind of bun.

I have to use like a thousand bobby pins to hold it onto her own teensy bun. Eleanor fell asleep as soon as we got home, at 2pm, but Geneva talked to herself about her day FOR AN HOUR and I was like So help me if you do not nap I will sell you to the circus this is not a drill and then she napped but only for like half an hour and then woke up in a fiery rage.

The day was just so, so long and the week has been so long so I busted out some Disney princess magnets I've been holding in reserve for a time such as this, but even THOSE were a no-go (tooooooo twicky!) until Eleanor woke up (AT LIKE 4pm!) and showed her how it was done.

LE SIGH they never told me dance class would be so much work, I thought it would be just like gymnastics or swimming lessons, where you take them there and then take them home and your main responsibility is to remember their accouterments, but OH WELL I GUESS IT IS WORTH IT.

They are performing at the end of May and I am going to die of pride.

Sisterpals forever.

They are such buddies right now.

SUCH BUDDIES.

Geneva can talk now finally, which makes things easier

and Eleanor's gotten a lot more patient with toddlers being toddlers.

Geneva will more often say 'Whazzat, Ewwonoh?' than 'Whazzat, Mummum?' And Eleanor loves nothing more than telling people what stuff is.

I'll be in the living room by my lonesome, and hear UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER coming from my room. 'What are you guys doing in there?' 'We're playing that it's NIGHT.'

We've been waiting so long to get to this place, where they're actually compatible human persons and not just annoyances in each others lives. 

Since Geneva was BORN, basically. 

And now it's finally here. 

Plus ca change.

Eleanor used to do this thing with her toes when she got really excited or involved in something. 

Lol 'used to.'

I am 34!

IT IS MY BIRTHDAY I am now 34, and the birthday gods have smiled upon me. Joel was on overnight call but nobody had any babies! So he slept all night! So I sent him to the Fun Factory with the girls instead of taking them myself, and I sat around and ate too much cheese and read trashy novels all morning! Also I went through one random box and purged a bunch of stuff, just to give myself that Having Done a Thing feeling.

Eleanor has been talking about my birthday for days, and this morning, when I went into her room to get her, she popped up in her bed and said, Happy birthday, mom! And Geneva, of course, echoed, HAPPY DAY DAY and this happened periodically throughout the day and occasionally they would burst into Happy Birthday, which Geneva did not know the words to until today but now she knows ALL OF THEM.

Back in December, Eleanor's Christmas present was two tickets to see Mary Poppins, and the only available matinee was ALSO MY BIRTHDAY and that is fortuitous. So that's how we spent our afternoon.

IT WAS SO LONG. It was almost three hours, which is actually shorter than the movie, which we watched in preparation (we also read the novel, which is also long). There was so much dancing and whimsy, however, that we didn't mind the length. Eleanor's favorite part was when a statue came alive and started dancing. My favorite part is when Eleanor tried on my shoes after we got home.

We got home in time to kiss Joel goodbye (he leaves tonight for a week) and pick Geneva up and head to Le Bon Temps, because it's my birthday and damned if I'm cooking for anybody. They didn't have the hush puppies we wanted but the poutine was just big enough for three girls.

Keep living your best life, Geneva.

(She puts these on indoors and goes I TAN'T SEE. I TAN'T SEEEEEE. and then whips them off and goes OH! Here are!)

Le Bon Temps is where Joel and I went the day before I had Geneva, and so the mud pie there was the last thing I ate before Geneva was born (because they don't let you eat in the morning before they cut you open). It was hellamazing and basically the reason I took the girls back there tonight, because I wanted one for my birthday.

Now all the girls are in bed and I've already crept in and snuck Geneva back into her sleep sack without waking her up (STOP TAKING OFF YOUR SLEEP SACK, GENEVA) and I haven't cleaned up a THING, which I know is going to make my life harder tomorrow but tomorrow's not my birthday. Now. Do I finish my trashy novel? Or do I watch Game of Thrones. Either way, I will round out this birthday by starfishing in the middle of my bed, with every pillow available to me. Come on in, 34. You're great. 

Gymnastical

Eleanor just finished her gymnastics class, and I've been putting off going to the drop-in because I don't want Geneva getting ideas. Every Monday, Geneva's there in the toddler area, with her little chin on the railing, watching Eleanor. 'Neeva do it a dimnastics class.' And I didn't want her to fight me about having to stay in the waiting area, but class is over! So today I took them to drop-in and let them run wild.

And gymanstics has been wonderful for Eleanor, who is athletically inclined like I am athletically inclined. Which is not. Since the class started, she's been developing so much more physical awareness and started just, like, randomly climbing and jumping off of stuff.

And I'm not always paying attention to her class and I'm pretty far away in the toddler area so all of a sudden, she's like

and I'm like, OH HEY GOOD JOB.

Geneva's pretty game, but she's at that nervous age where she's just realized she can fall. THE WORLD IS FULL OF DANGERS.

It's so fun, and so healthy, and so so so adorable.

Outsourcing my labor.

Eleanor read like four books to Geneva this morning. They were little books, ones she knew all the words to, and she sat Geneva on the couch and asked, Now what's this? (Sark!) That's right, you know it!

My work here is basically done.

New things.

Josie invited us to come help clean up a local park this morning with some friends. I almost didn't go because Joel was working and then I have to keep an eye on both kids and then we did potluck lunch afterwards which means I have to bring something and then also assemble food for both my kids and then also feed myself and ughhhhh.

But I'm trying not to be lame about stuff like this and just go. So we went! And it was amazing! All the garbage gets buried in the snow, and then when spring hits, the parks are filthy, and it's super satisfying to clean up something that's super dirty. Eleanor ran around finding the BIGGEST PIECES OF GARBAGE SHE COULD FIND and also weaseling her way into briar-y patches that I was too big to get into.

And then both girls just ate their sandwiches like grown-up persons, and there were SO MANY ADULT BODIES around and also a handful of BIG KIDS and people just had eyes on other people's kids and it was just completely easy and fun, which was not what I was expecting.

Other areas in which I have been trying not to be lame: Joel and I had our anniversary date while his parents were here, and I was like Ooooh, let's go see Deadpool. But then Joel came home and is like, We are going to a Breakout Room for our date, and I'm like, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS but it sounds like effort.

IT WAS ALSO AMAZING. Apparently everyone but me has heard of these? But so we got locked in a room where a murder had been committed and the lights were out and we got little flashlights and there were clues everywhere, and we had to figure out the clues to unlock the boxes and the safes and the wardrobe (and a dead body fell out of the wardrobe and I SCREAMED) to get out of the room, and we only had an hour.

And my mother-in-law had done one before with a group, as a team-building exercise, and they didn't make it out of their room. And we had just the two of us! So I assumed we probably weren't going to finish but we DID and it was ENORMOUSLY SATISFYING and then we went to one of those Japanese restaurants where they chop and grill all your food in front of you and make a little volcano out of the onion, and we rehashed each of the puzzles and the codes and where we had gone wrong and how we would do better next time.

The older I get, the more introverted and resistant to change I get. I don't want to try new things, I like my current things. And when we first met, Josie told me that she would always invite me to things and that I should always feel free to say no, and that me saying 'no' wouldn't stop her from inviting me to things, and it was the MOST FREEING THING she could have said. And while winter is a time for treading safe paths, spring and it's nice weather and it's energy and light make me want to step out.

But now our house is empty.

We have been very busy. There have been houseguests. 

There have been sand castles. 

There have been slides.

There has been face painting. 

There has been playdough. 

There have been baked goods. 

We have had a week.