Picture the scene:  Arden, sitting in music class in preschool.  Ms. Abby is talking about different instruments.  Arden politely raises her hand, and pulls out of her brain the following non-sequitur. 

“Yes, Arden?”

“Um, Ms. Abby?”

“Yes?”

“My mommy snores. Really loud.”

“Thank you, Arden.”

Yes, thank you Arden.  You are SOOO going to get it when your prom date shows up.  I will file away all your most embarassing moments for that one opportunity.  Victory will be mine, young Arden.  Victory. Will. Be. Mine.

Today was “Show Week” at The Little Gym.  For Lily, it was her first real dance recital - if you can call it that.  For Arden, she showed off all the gymnastics skills she’s learned over the past 4 1/2 months.  I took a ridiculous amount of photos and videos to try to make up for the fact that my video camera only had 1 minute of empty space available (!!!).  Ooops. 

I’m bummed because the video I had of Arden somehow didn’t get saved, and in it, she was screaming, “I AM A ROBOT I AM A ROBOT” and strutting across the gym.  It was classic Arden. 

This picture, too, is classic Arden* and Lily:

Notice that Arden is angry with me for making her pose, and Lily is acting like a total freaky ham.  Yeah, it’s totally them. 

*Arden’s eye is healing nicely, by the way, but it looks like a black eye in some of these pictures.  I swear I haven’t boxed with her lately - it truly is because of her surgery on Tuesday. 

And by the way, if you notice the cat faces, it has nothing to do with the recitals.  Ms. Erin was painting faces, so they thought it would be fun.

I was quite impressed with Arden - after her initial shyness, she did everything she was asked and had a ton of fun doing it.  Lily got in on the action too since only two girls were participating, and she basically got to play the entire hour. I was surprised she had enough energy to do her dance recitals after that.  I was also impressed with Lily and the majority of the girls in her class. Not only did they pay attention, but most remembered the steps and followed along.  It was really exciting to see her up there smiling and dancing, and best of all, enjoying herself!

First, pictures:

And then the unending stream of videos . . . because I’m THAT mom:

Hula - sorry for it being sideways. I always forget my camera does that when I turn it . . . and I can’t figure out how to edit it differently!

And more.  OMG, YouTube disabled the sound because it might be copyrighted!!! Hello, it’s a recital and I didn’t add the music - it was playing in the background!!!

We are home after Arden’s surgery to remove her chalazion.  In the words of her surgeon, it was “big and gross”.  That’s pretty much how I would describe it as well.

Unfortunately, because the skin on her eyelid had been damaged by the chalazion, he had to do the surgery from the front instead of behind the eyelid. This resulted in an IV and a longer time under sedation. It also resulted in 8 stitches near her bottom lid.  Thankfully the swelling is already going down and the stitches will dissolve as the scab forms.  I’m just so glad it’s over.  I’m trying not to be mad about not being able to get her in sooner, which would have been before the chalazion wore through the skin on her eyelid - and it would have been a more simple, less invasive surgery with no scarring on the outside.  Oh well.  Hopefully this is the first and last time Arden has any sort of surgery. 

We are now hanging on the couch while Mike gets lunch, watching Kung Fu Panda and relaxing.  I have a feeling we’ll be spending the majority of our day here, and that’s fine with me.  I will miss the inauguration on television but you guys can tell me all about it later.  Thanks for all the support and well wishes!

Arden’s eye before (and be glad I didn’t take pics of it once the chalazion wore away the skin - for the past week, it’s been nasty):

Arden’s eye after:

I took Arden to her eye specialist appointment this morning.  Supposedly this eye doc specializes in pediatric eye issues.  He was very weird in person, but Arden loved him, so I guess he really does specialize in talking to the little people.  I felt like a bit actor in the PeeWee Herman show - a little bit.  The good news is, Arden loved going to the eye doctor - she thought it was a big game. The bad news, her sty, or chalazion requires surgery to be removed. It has gotten too large and has recently started to bug her. There’s a chance it can actually rub away the outer skin of the eyelid, which would mean surgery and stitches on the lower lid - but if it stays intact, they can do the surgery, in under 5 minutes, on the inside of the lid.  Hopefully she won’t remember it.  On a happy note, her depth perception is 100%. . . so far it hasn’t hurt her vision. I will just be glad to have it over and done with.  I’m particularly thrilled that her pre-op appointment doesn’t require a blood draw and the surgery is done without an IV - just a mask to put her out for a few minutes.  Right now it’s scheduled for January 20th but we are on the cancellation list for next Tuesday if something opens up more quickly (I hate to wish some other kid would get a cold and drop out, but I REALLY do not want this thing to bust out of her eye like a miniature re-enactment of Alien, the Movie). 

On another sad, and partially happy note:  my Blackberry officially bit the dust today. The trackball has been problematic for a long time - it kept popping out, and I’d shove it back in there. I even resorted to crazy glue once when I was very desperate.  Today it popped out again and I broke it completely when trying to, as they say in the South, “mash the button back in ‘er”.  I am currently waiting for Mike to get home so I can go get an iPhone. I am not buying another Blackberry. Once I learned, by playing with my brother-in-law Frank’s iPhone, that Lo and Behold, I can process orders on this thing (!!!!) I was sold. 

It’s not the best time to be buying new anything, but I have no choice. I can’t even answer my own phone now. I can dial numbers, but I can’t check emails and I can’t answer the phone when it rings.  It’s been pretty annoying, especially since a customer decided today to call me 16 times but would never leave a message, and therefore I had no idea who it was until she finally broke down and left her name and number in the voice mail. 

It’s off to the Apple store iGo!

today i picked up arden who was, miraculously, not traumatized by seeing me splatted on the pavement yesterday.  before we got to the parking lot, arden informed me, loudly, to “watch out for that curb, mommy, and watch your feet!”  as we approached the deadly curb, she warned me again to watch out.  i successfully stepped over the curb, and arden shouted, while jumping up and down: “MOMMY, MOMMY! you did it! i knew you could! i’m so proud of you for not falling!”  and you know what?  the parking lot was full of parents picking up who heard the entire exchange.  it was awesome to be able to thrill arden by simply not falling down.