The Budding Ballerina

Oh my goodness, a post that isn't all about me!!!!

So my daughter, my first born lil preemie baby.... She has impressed me so much over the years. I know they say girls mature faster than boys, but she feels mature even for her age. But she's also tall for her age so she looks like she's 7 yrs old rather and 4. She shows so much compassion and tolerance for her little brother and friends in school that other friends don't get along with. (which kind of sounds like me when I was little. I would always become friends with the new kid, which is why I am still close friends with some of them!)

Recently she lost her first and second tooth. Both where painless on her side. It's possible they wiggled out early because she is a thumb sucker, however, it's not incredibly uncommon for kids her age to lose their first teeth either. Anyhow, she's working on it and we've found a way to help her.

Moving on, she starting taking pre-ballet this month. I kind of forgot that most dance studios take the summer off from classes and are usually only available during the school year. But our rec center had a one month class available, for dirt cheap too!!! Elyse has been asking and asking to do ballet. I had been really hesitant since when we put her in a dance class before, she was all over the place. Then again, she was 2. Now she is 4, about to be 5 and her listening skills have improved tremendously. 

She currently finished 2 weeks, (2 classes) and is in love with it. (yea, a former dancer's dream come true right?)We were watching the So You Think You Can Dance episode from this season, which is about kids, and a ballerina came on and Elyse says "She's a ballerina!! I'm a ballerina!" I did have to break it to her that she's a pre-ballerina, but she was still very excited about it. In the first episode, there was a very tall dancer. She is 13 and 5'10. This gave me hope that even though Elyse is tall, she could still be a ballerina if she wanted to!

So here I am, looking up classes to nurture her desire to dance. However, as one girl said on SYTYCD, "Dance is expensive!" we will have to see how much we can do for her!

I asked her last night, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I excepted her to say "mermaid" or "princess" or "jedi". She said "Ice skating Ballerina".  Might need Sharon Emo to train her on that!

The life of the Less Caffeinated

Some thing I have been sticking to since my 3 Day Cleanse is that I have been sticking to drinking less caffeine. I love coffee. I mean, LOVE the way it tastes and smells and everything about it. However, I have been having such trouble losing weight and getting my body the way I would like it. So, its time for a change!!

2.5 years ago, when this whole "I need to change my eating and (lack of) fitness habits" started, I gave up soda. I would only have soda at restaurants or parties or in a mixed cocktail before anyways. I didn't really keep soda in the house out of habit. My mom never really let us have sodas in the house growing up.


So now, I still only have soda on the rarest of occasions. I've maybe had 1 soda in all of 2016.  With that I want to start with reducing my caffeine intake. My kids are kids, not babies, which means they sleep through the night and can occasionally entertain themselves and are less and less reliant on me. Which leads me to believe, I don't NEED a full cup of coffee, everyday. I've been having decaf or teas. This is why I say "less caffeine" and not "giving up caffeine".  There is still caffeine in decaf, and there is also caffeine in some teas, such as green tea, or black tea.

So far so good. Since I had to go through the first days in the 3 day cleanse anyways, which were the worst. I would hate to let myself get back in the habit of having caffeine just to attempt to cut it out again.

Also, in the beginning of the year I gave myself a goal of 1000 miles in a year. Thats 1000 walking or running miles. Lets say with the end of June being my half way, and I should only 500 miles left to go from there... I'm VERY behind. With that in mind, I have been trying to catch up a little and started running again.

Running this week has reminded me why I've stopped. I have been walking/running a lot this week and besides all the mileage that came with it, I also revamped my plantar fasciitis, have insane sports bra rash and blisters all over my foot. Yay!!!

I will be going back to long fast walks for awhile trying to catch up!!!