I Originally Said No

When I was pregnant with Reese and found out I was having a daughter there were so many things I was excited about.  One thing that I always said though was that I would wait to put her in dance until she asked.  Selfishly, I didn’t want to start ballet with her because I grew up doing ballet, jazz, tap, etc and I knew how boring it was for the parents and how expensive it could be.

Two years ago I started Reese in gymnastics.  She loved it and I loved it.  Win!  Then she started three year old school. 

At Reese’s school they offer a combo ballet/tap class after school.  Several of Reese’s friends in her class go to “Dance Styles” as she calls it.  Every Thursday when Reese gets in the car she asks if she can do ballet.  I just kind of ignored her requests and said not right now.

In late October one of Reese’s friends from gymnastics broke her arm (not in gymnastics) so she had to quit for a while.  It ended up taking her arm a long time to heal because of how bad the break was and her mom was nervous to put her back in gymnastics.  She then started ballet.  From that day forward Reese could not stop talking about ballet.  She would tip-toe around the house, spin, wear her tu-tus and talk about how her friend got to do all of that in ballet class.  I started to feel bad about keeping ballet from her.  Over the Christmas break we went to her friends house and got to see the video of her ballet Christmas show.  Reese had such a grin on her face after watching that and on the way home asked again if she could do ballet.  This time I said we would see.

When we got home I called Lance and told him that I thought Reese would really love ballet.  So we decided to let her do ballet for a while and take a break from gymnastics. 

Today was her first day of ballet/tumble class.  She could hardly contain herself all day.  She must have asked a million times what time we were leaving.  She even entertained the bug guy with some dancing and singing…she usually hides from him.  When we arrived she was a little shy talking to the teacher at first but then walked right in.  Unfortunately there is no where for parents to watch them so I was scared I wouldn’t know how she did.  I was able to take a little sneak peek through the door and watch her do one thing.  She looked like she was doing well and enjoying herself.  After an hour of ballet/tumbling the door opened and Reese ran out to me with THE biggest smile on her face and twinkle in her eye.  She had a blast and I could tell she wanted to continue on with ballet.  I asked her one more time just to make sure and she said she wanted to do ballet instead of gymnastics.  I signed her up so she will be doing ballet through May.