Glamping with Daddy

Another Genius Daddy moment: taking our daughter camping on the deck outside our house.  Sonia has been dying to go camping ever since she found out it meant sleeping in a tent (boy, do little kids love tents!!).  So, Genius Daddy bought a tent and the adventure began.

The view from inside our master bedroom:

Andrew chose a 6-man tent so he could fit our queen-sized air mattress inside.

Because they're camping just a few inches from the house AND sleeping in comfort, I am referring to the exercise as "glamping" (glamorous camping).

So that the rain cover didn't completely cut off the air supply (it's pretty humid and in the high 70's, which results in a steamy tent within minutes unless it's vented properly), Andrew tied it to the posts on the deck railing.

Sonia is IN LOVE with the tent!

Maniacal camping grin!

We'll see how it goes....  Andrew just put Sonia down to bed (it's 8pm) and he's going to sit outside and read until he's sleepy enough to go to bed himself.  Me?  I'm going downstairs soon to watch Project Runway and enjoy the comfort of air conditioning and a nice couch.

Genius Daddy

Sonia and Andrew love to "play" golf together.  A couple of years ago, I bought Sonia a plastic set of golf clubs out of the Dollar Spot at Target, and she's been in love with them ever since.  Andrew has played mini golf with Sonia twice now, and they had so much fun that he went out and bought her a real putter (kid-sized, obviously).  At least once a week, I find the two of them downstairs in the basement, putting golf balls (plastic ones and real ones).  But, Andrew confided in me, it drives him nuts that Sonia will only play for 5 minutes at a time.  She has the attention span of a typical four-year-old, that's for sure.

Sonia also loves Angry Birds and Angry Birds Star Wars.  She's been amassing a small army of Angry Birds pencil toppers for the past 8 months.  How does a Genius Daddy like Andrew get Sonia to play golf with him for longer than 5 minutes?  Combine golf and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Sonia and Andrew took a bunch of the bad guys (such as the Stormtrooper Piggy and Jabba the Hut Piggy above) and set each one on top of a gorilla block (cool lightweight lego-type blocks that Sonia and Andrew also love to play with).  They then placed all the piggies in a line.

Then, they putted golf balls at the gorilla blocks and considered it a success if they were able to knock the piggies off of the blocks.

Notice the tail end of Margie cat in the bottom left-hand corner of this picture.... She loves her best friend, Sonia.

They played this funny game for 20 minutes!  That's an eon in little kid time.

Oh, Andrew.  You are awesome.

Soccer and Sonia

Today was Sonia's second soccer class (through Lisle Park District)..... Like all organized activities Sosi has participated in (Gymboree, library story time, gymnastics, preschool, and dance class), soccer is turning out to be very, um, interesting.  The first week was an unmitigated disaster.  Andrew said that Sonia stood stock still and cried almost the entire 45 minute class.  He was pretty upset about it and talked about pulling her from the class.  But we decided to give it at least a few more tries.

For the second class, we tried Ye Olde Bribery as a way to at least encourage her to try participating.  Lunch at Jason's Deli and a tiny little plastic Star Wars C-3PO toy were promised to our would-be soccer player if she would try hard and follow the coaches' directions.  It worked!!  Sonia is now the proud owner of C-3PO and a full belly of Jason's Deli pizza and ice cream.

Of course our little girl who typically has virtually no interest in princesses (I'll be honest, it's probably due to the fact that I have no interest in princesses, either) has decided that this headband-turned-tiara that I crocheted for her is one of her favorite accessories.  She and I have now decided it's her magic soccer tiara that helps her work hard in soccer class.

She did the best in the beginning of class when they played "Simon Says" and interacted with their soccer balls in different ways.  Simon says sit on your ball!

Note that A) she is following directions and B) does not have her daddy with her for moral support.  Hurray!!!

Now, let's practice trapping the ball!

Whenever the soccer coaches asked the kids to all assemble at a part of the room, it took Sonia forever to get her ball over there because she was determined not to use her hands.  Also, she got a little shy every time they switched activities.  Transitions are hard!

She lagged behind playing a "Mother, May I"-style game called "Mr. Fox, What Time Is It?", but she was still participating really well!

Now it's time to practice a new skill-- MONSTER KICKS!  That's what Coach Mike calls a big kick you do to get the ball in the goal.  First, use baby kicks to get the ball close to the goal.  Next, trap it.

Now, MONSTER KICK!  (Spoiler: she made it into the goal. Coach Mike's defense was a little shoddy.)

Now, give the coach five!

Post-five, the coach pretended she had hurt his hand, which delighted Sonia and the rest of the kids to no end.

 Assembling the kids to play a few little two-on-two games at the end of class....

Sonia played in her two-on-two game just about as well as her mommy plays sports....  Watching and wondering how in the world all the other kids know how to just get in there and play.  Ohhhhh, Sonia.

Now, everyone put their hand on the soccer ball and yell, "I LOVE SOCCER!"

I'm so proud of Sonia....  She still doesn't do as well in organized activities with male leaders as she does with female leaders, but Andrew assures me that she did a billion times better than last week.  About 10 minutes into class, he leaned over and whispered to me that she had already smiled more in this class than she did in the entire 45 minute class last week.  Good girl!!

ZEM, 5 years later

5 years ago today, I held my stillborn son in my arms. We never found out why Zach left us, but we loved him then and we love him still. "Happy" birthday, Zachary Evan Malahowski. Sonia, I apologize for the ridiculous number of hugs and kisses you're going to receive today.

More pictures of the tiny dancer

Like her mommy, Sonia's not too much of a girly-girl.... but we both enjoy wearing fancy dresses every once in a while!  I love looking at these pictures of my little tap-dancing ballerina.

When we walked out of the house to take some pictures and then leave for the recital, Sonia Balogna hopped on her bike before we could stop her.  Luckily, no little girls got any grease from bike chains on any pairs of tights!

My new favorite picture of me and my daughter!

At this point in the posing, our little dancer was getting a bit silly.  At least her grandparents look fabulous!

Silly kid!

Please ignore the fact that Sonia is trying to extract my bra strap.... Ohhhhhhhh, Sonia!

Dance machine

Lisle Park District dance recital 2013!  Buckle up-- it was a bumpy ride.  The dress rehearsal went swimmingly for Sonia.....

She even kept dancing after her buddy, Cameron, tripped on his WAY too long pants and spent the rest of the song in the fetal position.

We didn't get any pictures of the ballet routine, but she nailed that one, too (as much as a newly-minted four-year-old can nail a dance routine).  We also have no video because my Flip video camera decided to die right then and there.  ARGH!!!!

Then came the dance recital two days later.  We weren't allowed to take pictures and videos there (in order to sell more DVDs, of course, and supposedly our flashes would distract the dancers).  When Sonia's class came out on stage for their tap routine (to the music "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid), Sonia took one look at the packed audience (after using her hands to make little glasses to look through so she could shade her eyes from the stage lights-- HA!!) and got very still.  She stood stock still as the rest of her class danced their hearts out (even Cameron, who had his pants fixed, luckily). Near the end of the song, she started crying, but she made it through until the curtain closed.  Andrew, my parents, and I were out in the audience partially giggling and partially feeling like our hearts were breaking for our scared little girl.

I felt horrible, but unless a dancer has a tragedy, the parents are not allowed backstage.  We sat through a bunch of other classes' dances (LOVE the adult tap students!!! awesome!!!), wondering how Sonia's ballet routine would go.  When Pre-Ballet 1 & 2 took the stage once again, Sonia repeated her glasses routine, but she was smiling this time.  She did about half of the dance and seemed happy throughout the entire song ("The Work Song" from Cinderella).  Then, when all the dancers took the stage at the end of the show to do a hilarious routine to "I Like to Move It" (or whatever it's called), Sonia managed to tear her attention away from watching the older dancers (she especially liked the purple-outfitted girls, she told me later) to do a few of the moves.

So, all in all, not a disaster (no potty accidents! no screaming tantrum! no injuries!).... But Sonia definitely had a rough introduction to performing.  We'll see if she wants to continue to dance when classes start up again this fall.  I'd love it-- she seems to have a blast during the rehearsals, and she recovered from the shock of seeing so many people staring at her and did great the rest of the recital-- but I will never force her to do some organized activity that she doesn't want to do.

Oh, Sonia.  You are such a cutie.  It makes me smile and giggle to look back at these pictures.  What a cuckoo bird!!

Our Four-Year-Old Goofball

Happy birthday to our Sonia Balogna!! We love you so much!

More May flowers

With the insane amount of April showers we had, Sonia and I are making sure we enjoy every May flower we can find!  We found these gorgeous tulips in the sunken garden at the Phillips Park Zoo.

One of my favorite parts of our visit yesterday was watching the African spurred tortoise working hard in his exercise yard....  He was zooming around, not even stopping to munch any of the dandelions in the grass. Because his chosen path included a sweep of the perimeter we got to see this handsome dude up close and personal.