The Social Ballerina

Ava amazes me lately, with her social skills. I was pleasantly surprised when I picked her up from day care yesterday. Her teachers said she had an amazing day! Poor Liam is teething, so he didn’t exactly have the same kind of day. They said she willingly took a nap, slept for two hours, woke up in a great mood and wanted to give hugs to everyone all day. Wow! She will sometimes fight going down for a nap, but eventually gives in. They normally wake her up after an hour so she won’t have an accident. This sometimes leads to her being cranky when they wake her up early. Normally other kids want to give Ava hugs at school and she sometimes doesn’t want hugs. We’re working on responding with a “no thank you, maybe tomorrow” instead of screaming “No!” (defiantly). She seems to be doing really well with this. She has a wonderful teacher, thankfully!

When Ava is home lately, she is floating around in her light-up ballerina dress or leotard and tutu. I ran across the light-up dress for $4 at a local consignment sale. After we went to a local ballet on Saturday (Beauty and the Beast at Southern Polytechnic State University), I thought I would surprise her with the dress. She LOVES it. It is battery-powered and the lights fade to different colors. She really enjoyed the ballet, and likes to dance around the house showing off her recently-acquired ballerina moves.

I am also impressed with her agility. Within the past few months, I've noticed how fast she can run, how coordinated she seems to be. Recently at her birthday party, she was climbing up the big slides with kids much bigger than she is, and sliding down. She wasn't scared, but really seemed to enjoy herself. She definitely wants to do these kinds of things on her own. We don't push her to jump in at all. She eagerly and willingly jumps in head-first to these kinds of things.

I recently asked the teacher of our class at church (who is a family counselor, etc) about “Yes” versus “No” with kids. I don’t want Ava to be spoiled, but I do want her to be able to say “No” and feel like her “no” will be validated and heard, if the situation calls for it. The teacher said that a kid’s “deck of cards” should be stacked with both “Yes” and “No”. He further confirmed that it is entirely situational. He also said that the consequence alone should do the work, coupled with some guidance, if necessary. No “I told you so’s”. He also said that the consequence might not stop a certain behavior the first time around. Hearing this information had a calming affect on me. It’s a great class we go to on Sunday mornings! I know I “allow” things quite often with Ava, which is a “Yes”, but I am now trying to be more mindful of actually saying the word “Yes”. Don’t get me wrong, Ava’s not a terror at all, but I just want to be sure that we’re always being principally-driven with our interactions in this arena, given how much we multi-task.

While my Mom was visiting in early March, we all ate dinner before taking my Mom to the airport. During dinner, Ava (out of the clear blue sky) said “Thank you to coming to visit me, Grandma Pam.” Awww! I couldn’t believe my little girl said this without being prompted at all. She sometimes will do this, and let us know how thankful she is for one thing or another. I am so glad she expresses herself this way. When I took her recently to a local ballet, she leaned over and kissed my knee or my hand four or five times to say “thank you” during the middle of the show. It warms my heart when she does things like this!

She likes to say the prayer before we eat dinner every night. If we’ve been sitting before we eat dinner, she says “We forgot to say the blessing!” Her prayer often goes something like this: “Dear God, Thank you for the beautiful day. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy and Ava and Liam and Daddy and Mommy and Liam and Ava. Thank you for ____________. Thank you for all the children of the world. In Jesus name, Amen.” In the blank area noted, she prays for different things on different nights. Tuesday night, she prayed and thanked God for Grandpa Dean. Wednesday night she thanked God for the dinosaurs.

The other day she told me “I like puppy dogs, monsters and bees!” I found it interesting that she came up with this list so quickly. She definitely doesn’t normally like any of the above. She seems to be afraid of things early in the Spring, before we spend a great deal of time outside. After being around bees and ants during warmer months, she gets used to them. When she asked where a fly went recently, we told her he flew out the door to go back to his Mommy and Daddy. So, hopefully she won’t ask questions when we’ve “squashed” one of his relatives against a wall or something!

Peace, love and light-up ballerina dresses,
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam