Ballet

Edie took her first "ballet" class this afternoon.

Last year, we signed her up for The Little Kickers soccer team and then threw some money around so our kid could run laps around the indoor soccer field, totally ignoring the instructor for 50 minutes each Saturday morning.

We took the summer off from any organized classes, but then enrolled in gymnastics at The Little Gym this Fall. The gym is walking distance from our house and while our attendance has been a bit sporadic with my work travel and Edie's sleepovers in Bellingham - it's been a pretty fabulous experience. The teacher is great, and Edie picks up the skills very quickly. She was actually sort of a gymnastics whiz - the teacher even approached me after two classes to ask if she'd been taking gymnastics or toddler yoga (which is apparently a real thing) prior to enrolling at The Little Gym. I think it's the combination of her small size and fearlessness - but she would leap from the 2 foot high pedestal and catch herself on the uneven bars mid-air, over and over. She loved hanging upside down, and scampered on tip-toe from one end of the balance beam to the other, rejecting the assistance from "Teacher Kara" that the other children clung to. I'm not going to pretend that she was always the best at following directions - in fact my kid's most prominent skill in class is interrupting the teacher to provide a random piece of information: "Teacher Kara? (said LOUDLY and CLEARLY) Did you know that there's a cat at my Dad's office and his name is BATMAN??!!!" or "Teacher Kara? This morning my Mom had oatmeal for breakfast but I wanted NUTELLA!!"

But the kid has some undeniable skills. We were graduated in December from the parent-toddler class to the 3-5 year old class without parents. Since then, we've been a few times and I can spy on her through the glass partition during class. None of the parents ever leave the glassed-in lobby though, so I've always been hesitant to drop Edie off and actually leave the building. Which essentially results in Edie spying me through the glass mid-class, and then leaving class every 5 minutes to find me in the lobby and announce (loudly and clearly) to me (and everyone else in the lobby) what just happened in the classroom - "MOM. I just jumped off the balance beam and hurt my leg but I think maybe it's okay." It's cute AND annoying. We will probably continue to attend gymnastics on the weekends, but today Edie started pre-ballet as well.

For Christmas she surprised us by asking Santa for ballet slippers and then showed enthusiasm for taking ballet all of January. My very close friend Darrah has her own company teaching dance classes for children and today was the first day of her Spring session. Edie's BFF Penny who lives 2 doors down is also taking the class. We strapped an extra carseat in this morning and I drove the girls this afternoon. I have no idea if Edie's behavior in class was appropriate because Darrah knows what she's doing and requests that parents actually leave while their kids are in the class. No more lobby visits for me! The last 5 minutes, parents are invited in to watch the kids perform something they learned in class. It was SO CUTE.

Getting dressed at home and showing me her 'moves':

 Look at those skinny little legs!

 Outside the studio - showing me their ballet shoes.

Inside before class:

With Teacher Darrah:

End of class: Edie is the farthest to the left, on her knees.