Dance, Dance, Dance

Ten months doesn't seem like much. It's just about 40 weeks. Hmm, the length of a full-term pregnancy. Almost as long as Olivia gestated (she lasted 41 weeks and two weeks.)

This past weekend A and O and I attended the Purdue University Dance Marathon. We were last in West Lafayette about ten months ago, also attendeding a dance marathon.

At the last one, Olivia was just a few months into being three. She'd been walking for, oh...a year and a half.

She hated the bounce house. HATED it.

Alyssa loved it so much she bounced for six hours straight.

This time? Ten months later? Six'ish months of gymnastics classes under her belt? Olivia LOVED the bounce house. I almost couldn't drag her out of it. She bounces and jumped and fell with a purpose. She loved having other kids in there, even college 'kids.'

The only kid she avoided was Mickey, who tends to hug a little too tightly and tickle without letting up. Mickey is also about 13 years old and outweights Olivia by 75+ pounds. So when Mickey was in there alone, Olivia stayed out. But if there was even one other person in the bounce house with Mickey, Olivia was in there too.

She's small but she's quick and if she saw a hug coming her way, she could scramble either behind the other kid or out of the bounce house.

Also in milestone news, Alyssa said an entire sentence to my lovely friend Julie, whom Alyssa has known her entire life. She said (probably snippily, I wasn't there to hear the tone,) "My mom said I have to get an orange."

So...a full sentence. She's working on that shyness thing. We're working together. Baby steps, like the ones Olivia took to brave the bounce house.

Our whole house is about baby steps. I'm going to try and take baby steps toward self-acceptance while I continue to encourage Alyssa to take baby steps to overcome her shyness. And we'll all cheer Olivia on as she takes more and more baby steps toward full independence.

Bounce...bounce...bounce...goes the orange her mom told her to get.