Yes, I can already hear your exasperated eye-rolls... "How does a three year-old have a PASSION?" And before all of this, I too would have scoffed at the idea that a 3 year-old could have ideals that could be described as "a dream" or "a passion" in the same context that we would use for an adult... But I'm here to tell you, our girl has completely blown me away with this notion. For the past 10 months, we have lived in a world that has progressively entranced itself with ballet dancing. At this point in time, it's pretty much 24/7 ballet around here. If she is not dancing, she is watching YouTube videos of ballets-- her favorites are Swan Lake and Giselle. She would spend hours (if I let her) watching and mimicking the moves of principal ballerinas. We have recently enforced set hours of the day when I confiscate her ballet shoes and force her-- yes, FORCE HER-- to do something else. And when she is in trouble, taking away her ballet shoes for the day is more of a consequence than anything that I can ever dream up.
I might note that this obsession traces all the way back to last Christmas season. I decided one day that she needed a little festive culture, so I rented the motion picture version of The Nutcracker (you know, the one with Macaulay Culkin when he was like five years-old), which was On Demand-- and on sale, of course. I never in a million years expected the reaction that we got from her... We watched it every single day for the rest of that week (which was about as much as I could take). She was completely enamored. All she talked about for weeks were the characters. When she was playing in her room, my eavesdropping revealed that the Mouse King, Clara, and Nutcracker Prince had become regular figures in her pretend play.
this is my favorite face, reserved for when she really gets lost in the music...
After about a month of the Nutcracker, I decided that she needed a new set of characters to idolize... So, I offered up Swan Lake. She took that and ran with it!! Before we knew it, I was buying Tchaikovsky's Masterpieces off iTunes so that she could dance to them at will. She memorized almost every piece and its corresponding part of the ballet. It didn't take long before she was requesting to listen to her "ballet music"- instead of her white noise- to fall asleep every night. This is when I knew that she had it baaaaadd....
We put off ballet class for as long as we possibly could. I wanted to make sure this wasn't a passing phase (even though I knew that it wasn't), and I really wanted her to start at the beginning of the dance season in the Fall so that she wasn't coming into groups that were already established. This is her first real activity where I won't be with her, so I wanted to make sure she was prepared...
So, here we are-- her first class is on Saturday morning at America's Ballet School. We have prepared her uniform, her "listening ears," and her contagious anticipation for this moment... And as any mother would, I am just hoping and praying that all goes well for her.
I have informed her that ballerinas have very good "listening ears"... ;)
I think you would agree that the excitement is written all over her face.
arabesque and relève
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Now, before you even ask, I will fully admit that I know a whole lot of nothing about ballet. I took one year of it and I was done... I always loved to dance, but ballet was just not my thing. Also, what I have heard, watched, and researched about ballet has not been the most wonderful stuff. If Brynn wants to give it all up at any time, I will be 110% supportive of that. I am no "dance mom"...
After all, this is all just supposed to be fun... :)
With all of that being said, I know that there will be a part of me that has tears in my eyes when we walk into dance school on Saturday... Thinking about my baby girl, who has grown up so much, and all of her hopes and dreams coming true for the first time in her life.
Good luck, Brynnie Ballerina!
We could not be more proud of you.
Shoot for the stars, Sis!
Shoot for the stars, Sis!
2 comments:
Your daughter is so cute! Julia my 6 year old is interested in ballet. We've done gymnastics since she was 2. I love the pics of your daughter! God bless her!
Aww I bet she's going to do great! These photos are awesome by the way!
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