Lessons

Harper had her first dance lesson last week. It was... ummm... interesting. Good, but interesting.

The first half hour of the class is devoted to tap dance. Harper basically stood still for the entire 30 minutes. She was watching what everyone was doing, but not really participating. At all. This made me very anxious. I wanted to swoop in and reassure her. I wanted her to have fun. She was so excited to start dance lessons that I was just certain that she would instantly take to it.

After 30 minutes, the class takes a 5 minute break so the girls can change into their ballet shoes. While I was putting Harper's shoes on, I asked her if she was having fun. She said "Oh, yeah! I love it!" Hmmm... Well, after encouraging her to participate a little more, I sent her back in to the rehearsal space.

To my relief, the ballet portion of the class went much better. She still watched her teachers intently, but this time, she also tried all of the moves. She especially got into the free dance time at the end of the class (the teacher just puts on some music and the girls can dance around how ever they want). All in all, she said that she loved the class. She loved it so much that she didn't want to go home. There may or may not have been tears when we left.

If parenting is teaching me anything, it's teaching me to be flexible. As well as I think I know my kid, she is still very unpredictable. I had this vision of how I thought this dance class was going to go and when it wasn't happening the way I thought it was going to happen, I panicked. Harper, on the other hand, apparently had everything under control. Already, I think she's pretty good at scoping out situations and feeling comfortable approaching things at her own pace. She has her second class tonight. She's super excited about it. And so am I.