Tutu

I just ordered $45 worth of leotards, tights and ballet shoes for Annika. I'm such a sucker...I couldn't resist the leotard with the sparkles and attached tutu. I know that a plain and simple short-sleeved pink leotard would have worked just fine. Heck, a T-shirt and leggings would have been fine for 3-year-old ballet, but...how is that any fun? If she's going to go to ballet, she's going in her pink, tutu leotard, pink tights and pink slippers.

Yeah, I'm that parent. But seriously, how adorable will she look? I'll take pictures. She starts the first Wednesday of March and she's so excited about it. She keeps twirling around with her arms raised so delicately above her head. She learned it on "Little Einsteins". OK, and I showed her once, but then I decided that the people downstairs probably don't want to hear my huge butt leaping around upstairs.

Hans has the day off today, which is nice. Sometimes, the Army here gives folks an extra day off when there's a three-day weekend. We dropped Josiah at preschool with his box of Valentine's treat bags for his friends, then the three of us headed over to the mall for an errand, to McDonald's for lunch (I'm paying for that) and then on to the PX for our weekly shopping for useless stuff we don't really need. And soap.

Picked Josiah up from school...no kidding, he had a pink, sugary circle around his mouth, his pupils were dilated and he was speaking in tongues. I guess over-sugaration is OK a few times per year...I mean, how much would it suck to be a kid and not have a few occasions to consume mass-quantities of sugar each year? Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Quarterly.

We got Josiah signed up for T-ball and Annika for ballet. AND...I found out that I am entitled to 16 free hours (per child) of childcare per month while Hans is deployed. After the 16 hours, I pay half the hourly fee, too. I already made appointments for Annika to go to the daycare center twice so that I can have a little break. That's a great deal. I didn't know if I would qualify for it, since he'll be gone just three months, but I'm glad that I checked into it.

In other news, Josiah had another one of those interesting incidents at preschool on Monday. As we were coming into school, we met one of his little classmates with her father...I was a bit behind and heard her call Josiah a "troublemaker"...which isn't a big deal. Except that the father was talking to Josiah about it when I caught up to them in the classroom. That's when the Mama Bear instinct kicked in and I asked him if there was some sort of problem that we needed to discuss. The father claimed that his daughter keeps coming home complaining that Josiah is picking on her, stealing toys from her school bag, just generally being naughty. Now, I'm not saying Josiah wouldn't do things like that...I just know that if there had been a problem of the magnitude the father was hinting at, Josiah's teacher would have said something. Josiah was really upset, too, crying and saying "I'm not a troublemaker, I'm kind!".

And of course, when I asked teacher about it, she was completely non-plussed and said that Josiah and this little girl don't even play together. Teacher went so far as to check with her aides and they all agreed that Josiah and this girl don't have much contact and that at no point had he been picking on her. OK, not a big deal, 4-year-olds make stuff up all the time, right? Except I really don't appreciate the father's attitude that day or the way he attacked Josiah...he could have checked with the teacher and verified facts beforehand.

Sigh, preschool drama! I'm so excited to see what kindergarten drama is like.

Hans and I are having a little date tonight. We're going to a restaurant in downtown Stuttgart, some place he went with some folks from work at some point. Steaks, potatoes...sounds good. The rest of our weekend will be filled with getting "things that require a man" things done. Assmebling Annika's new bicycle. Killing any bugs. Carrying heavy things. Stuff like that.

Have a great weekend everyone!