Crushed Dreams of an Aspiring Stage Mother

Jayla threw the worst tantrum of her life this evening. She absolutely did not want to go to her dance class. She cried, screamed, wailed, fought, kicked, went limp, etc. for a full 30 minutes over this. She did not want to put on her pretty dance clothes. She did not want to dance with "her friends". She did not want to see Ms. Crystal. She did not want to do her crab walks, her frog jumps, or her log rolls. There was pretty much no reason compelling enough that would even give me a chance at prying her hands off the straps of her car seat. And the whole time I was trying to convince her, she kept yelling, "Start the car, mama! Start the car!". She was serious, ya'll.

So, I had to call in back-up: Daddy! We talked on the phone for a few minutes so that I could give him the scoop. He then came directly from work to the dance studio parking lot. He was determined to at least get her into the building. But, once he saw her determination, I think he had a slight change of heart. I had never seen her so adamant about something. And he didn't have the heart to try to force anything on her either. I eventually broke down because if you know me and how I feel about dance, then you know that my child had basically ripped out my heart and destroyed it. Plus, I have wanted to be a stage mother for my entire adult life and I was seeing my dream crash and burn before my eyes.

We never convinced her to dance tonight. Mama cried a bit, we came home, then mama sulked for a while. However, the rational part of me is fully aware that for a 2.5 year old to decide that she doesn’t want to dance one night is not her way of rejecting me. In fact, she showed genuine concern when she saw my emotions. It also doesn’t mean that she will not want to dance tomorrow or when she’s 3 or whenever. Neither does it mean that I will never be a stage mother. But, it does mean that I need to decide whether or not to keep her enrolled in the class because, seriously, when you are on a graduate assistant salary, there are better things to do with money than pay $50/month to be abused outside of a dance studio.

Streak Over!

I had been wanting to post something about how well Jayla has done with using the bathroom this week. I was going to say something about how she hadn't peed in her pants or in a pull-up since last Sunday. I wanted to brag about how she had gone 5 days straight with no accident. Imagine how pleased I was when I went to pick her up from school today and she walked out of the classroom having taken a large dump in her underwear that no one but me seemed to notice. It was truly glamorous. I know - God just wants to keep me humble...

Where does she get this stuff?!?!?

Last night, I said something about Jayla being a girl. She replied, "I'm not a girl, I'm a lady!" I asked her who told her that and she just giggled hysterically.

This morning on the way to school, we were sitting at a stop light and she says, "Mama, I don't want to go to school. I want to go shopping!" Again, what!?!? The word shopping is never used in our house because no one that lives here likes to do it. Except Jayla, apparently. I told her that we could go shopping this weekend, though I doubt she has any clue what we had just negotiated on.

This post was not about pink eye. You're welcome.

Remember how I told ya'll that I was tired? I found a little proof of that on my camera over the weekend. Daddy apparently took this when he came home from work on Day 2 of the Pink Eye Era. There is no telling what Jayla had gotten into before he arrived. She looks only a little suspicious, don't you think?


And the next time I post, I promise that it will be about something other than bacterial infections of my child's ocular region.

Day 5: Less Pink, More White!

One thing that I didn't mention on Day 4 is that we had gotten a new antibiotic prescription for Jayla's eyes because, clearly, the prescription that we got on Day 1 was not helping the situation! One day on the new meds and we woke up to this on Day 5:


What a difference a day makes! This is Jayla happily ready to go to school yesterday. I was a little sad to see her go, actually. But, everyone was so happy to see her when she got there. It feels good to get back to normal and most importantly, we can keep our playdate that we have planned for tomorrow. I'm certain that I'm more excited about that than Jayla is...