With my black eyes

Arabella tells us that she can find things because "with my black eyes, I can see really good."

Tuesday was Arabella's first day back at Ballet class, and she had a wonderful time. Although her usual pal was in a quieter mood, Arabella made new friends, and after class she and her old chum had a good time running around while her mom and I visited. I had just finished sewing the tiny pink roses on the black cotton sweater, and it looks so lovely.

Also on Tuesday was my first one-on-one parenting class with Arabella's teacher. We are trading kiln firing and studio time for the classes, which suits us both just fine. We had an 90 minute meeting, and we talked about many of the issues I have with Arabella. Most of these issues, like the testing me and not listening, are simply age issues, and though hard are fairly straight forward. Other issues, like changing her mind 4 times a second ("I want waffles. yes, waffles. No, I want bacon. Yes, bacon, I want baconbaconbacon." and once the bacon is done it "NOOOOOO! I want a waffle!" and tantrum ensues) is really just Arabella's personality. Woop.

On the good side, she said that Arabella is a very aware child: "if I asked her at any point what is going on in the classroom, even on the other side of the room, she would be able to tell me." When I talked to my grandmother about this she said, "well, of course, she watches what else is going on, she's afraid she might miss out on something fun."

But we discussed some concrete ways to deal with Arabella's 3yo issues, and that was good. She recommends the book "Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy, " one of a series for several young ages (two's, three's, four's, five's).

Yesterday was mostly a good day. At quiet time, Arabella played for an hour and then fell asleep all by herself. She had about a one hour nap, and still woke up crabby, but I figured she needed it.