Amelia begged and begged to take dance lessons, but I made her wait until this year. I have found kids are much more committed to activities they choose to do and really WANT to do (building up a little anticipation is an advantage here!) And so last September, I watched my little ballerina walk into the dance studio with a big grin on her face. There were times this year that she didn't love ballet so much - she said her teacher was mean. Just a little aside about that... it is no fun hearing that a teacher/coach is "mean" because of course we want our children to be surrounded by supportive and adoring adults. We have been HUGELY blessed with great teachers for our kids at school so far. I also think if there is truly a teacher or coach who is abusive toward children (I had a nun in Catholic school who bullied me viciously and unnecessarily) it's our job to stick up for our kids. BUT. I also think having a tough teacher, or one whose personality just doesn't work well with our kid's, or one who just isn't that great, is a good thing every now and then. Some day these kiddos are going to to venture out into the wide, wide world. Out there they will have a boss who is unfair, a college professor who is grouchy and mean, a police officer who is on some crazy power trip. And when they are in that situation, they will need to know how to deal with someone whose rules they must live by, even though they may feel picked on. A little tough skin and ability to navigate those situations is a good thing. Plus I'm BIG on following through on commitments. So, we struggled through ballet at times this spring.
But like all things that are hard work, the pay off was BIG. Amelia was beaming after her performance! She did a perfect job and she knew it. I have been talking to Sophia a lot about why we do hard things and how rewarding it is to accomplish something that was difficult in the process.
Before the show, I took her to my hair stylist for an up-do.
I really took her for a quick bang-trim the day before, and Janice told me to just bring her in so she could to the bun. I don't own enough bobby pins or hair spray to do it myself, so instead of buying those I just had Janice do her hair - and she did a much better job that I could have.
I also put a TON of stage make up on Amelia. I told my friend that I was going to have to get in touch with my inner Toddlers and Tiaras mom to do my kid's makeup and take her to a salon. I was joking, but at the dress rehearsal a mom actually freaked out, cried, and stormed out. Really. Over a preschool dance recital.
That was right before the show - butterflies in her tummy. But they were happy, excited butterflies!
Their dance was adorable. That's Amelia right in the middle.
Sophia took this lovely picture ha!
My sweet ballerina
And then she was tired of posing and took off!
The recital for this dance studio is way too late for this age group. Amelia's dance started around 7:30 (her normal bedtime). She had to be there at 5:00. We didn't get out of there until after 8:30 (and we left before all the dances were done). But I had promised to take her out to pizza afterwards, so we went and had the most fun time sitting and talking late at night over pizza (it reminded me of this).
Now she is BEGGING to do dance again next year. We'll see.
2 comments:
So adorable! and I totally agree about the life lessons...
~Have a lovely day!
She is beautiful! I remember having to help Abbey put on stage makeup...I was terrible at it.
And I love what you said about dealing with all sorts of people...so true. Making our kid's worlds perfect is only creating a terrible illusion of what the real world is like.
Post a Comment