Y’all know I brag, without compunction about the lil’wrekker. In all respects, to me, she’s perfect. Logically I know she’s not. In my heart she’ll always be the bestest!! Love her to distraction.
When she was 3 she started ballet classes. I was a dancer many years. Of course my baby would have ballet. I was such the dance Mom. I knew the Dance instructor. She was a friend. I jumped in full force. Helping with costumes, recitals, snacks. Even taught a few classes. I loved it.
At her first recital, I helped backstage. I didn’t actually get to see the performance. I had seen all the rehersals and there were people filming. Mr.Wrekker filmed it with a camcorder but he was so far back it was hard to see. Ah, what ev. She danced on stage. They got applause. Good.
The next week I was at the Dance studio and my friend the Instructor ask me to come look at the film of the recital. The youngest Dancers were first, of course. The music started. They were doing there steps and one little girl, in a cutest ever Pink Tutu sits down and messes with her shoes. We had put bows on their ballet flats. This little girl was untying the bows sitting on the stage while 12 other girls danced all around her. Yep. You guessed it. It was the lil’wrekker. She spent her first recital sitting on the stage.:smack:
Well, she was only 3 and it was really cute. They got a big applause possibly because of her cuteness. No matter.
The next year she stood and waved at the audience.
3rd year (she’s 5yo now) She cried. She CRIED on stage.
4th year The dance Instructor was hard on this class. In her words it was time they stepped up their game. No more playing. They would do a real Dance, like the big girls.
Most of the girls did the hard work. 2 girls dropped out. The lil’wrekker stood around, looked out of the window. Sat on the floor.
The Instructor (my friend)sat me down. She said I was wasting my money. The lil’wrekker would never be a ballet Dancer. I needed to pull her outta class. I was heartbroken. I hated to tell my baby she got kicked out of Ballet.
I sat her down and told her she wouldn’t be going to Ballet class anymore. I expected tears, gnashing of teeth and a general tantrum.
Nope.
What I got was dancing. She danced allover the house singing “no more ballet, no more ballet” Happiest kid ever.
How did I give birth to this little ingrate?
Bad, bad, bad lil’wrekker disappointing your ol’ Ma like that.
(It’s alright really, I kinda knew it wasn’t her thing, I was just enjoying the whole dance studio volunteering)
Ha, I had a boy. He WANTED to take ballet. He took ballet. Usually in a class with maybe one other boy…maybe. He danced in recitals and he danced in two productions with the Colorado Ballet. They were offering him a scholarship AND A STIPEND when he was 11.
About that time he decided he couldn’t take the pressure. This was the pressure of being a boy who danced ballet. He loved it, but his friends made fun of him. Even his enemies made fun of him.
He switched to karate.
I should say, the year he danced in the Nutcracker with the Colorado Ballet, 300 little girls tried out to be mice and rats and soldiers, and six boys tried out. Two of the boys had never had ballet. One of the boys had never even had a single dance class, the other one had done hiphop. All the girls had been in ballet for years.
CB picked out 24 little girls to be mice, rats, and soldiers. And six boys. Six of the best girls also got to be Party Girls. All six boys got to be Party Boys.They made special costumes for the six boys. The girls had to fit into the costumes they already had from previous years. Even the boy who’d never studied dance before got offered a scholarship AND A STIPEND. (Two of the the boys were the sons of CB dancers and they were already getting all their classes free.)
But, no, my boy switched to karate.
(But okay, because after two productions with CB, costume fittings, rehearsals, eight shows a week for the whole month of December because he was in all the casts, I had had about enough of being a Dance Mom. Although it turned out being a Karate Mom wasn’t a lot better in terms of time commitment. And no scholarship.)
I was bummed that my daughter didn’t get into ballet, or tap, or piano, or gymnastics, or softball… but she gave them a try. ( One at a time - I wasn’t that mom…)
I do wish she’d had the self-discipline to stick with something, but in the grand scheme of things, she’ll get hers. I hear her talk about all the things her daughter will do… hehehehehe!
I always loved watching little kids in performances who don’t do what they’re supposed to do. I remember one school play my son was in when he was very young, but I was really watching another little kid who was standing in the front row, yanking on his tie. He finally pulled it right off, and then some adult beckoned him to the edge of the stage to help him put it back on. Mission accomplished, he looked back at his assigned place…and then decided to take a leisurely walk around, inspecting the stage lights and whatnot. I was wetting myself!
Self-reinforcing gender roles suck. Not many boys dance ballet, because not many boys dance ballet, therefore the ones who do are subjected to mockery. 11 is an age where you get crap for not conforming to gender roles, but aren’t yet old enough to point out that you’re getting to spend a lot of time with members of the opposite sex who sometimes aren’t wearing a lot of clothes. (The truth of that, or whether it matters to the boy in question, is irrelevant to its usefulness in getting the mockers to back off.)
The lil’wrekker did do LOTS of other extracurricular activities. Music and Singing have been a big thing to her. She acted all thru highschool. Cheerleaded. Band. Piano.
She was bookish and a good student as well. So I got my Mom-pride fix alot of times.
She’s still singing. She gave up on drama. It just took too much of her time. She can play piano enough to practice her singing.
Sounds like Li’l Wrekker’s still a dancer, Becks: just like her mama, she dances around the house.
I never had a smidgeon of your talent, but I took ballet for six years and Honors Dance (which you had to audition for) in HS. I loved to dance, and I sucked at sports, so it was a good trade for me. The only reason I got to take lessons was because I was pigeon-toed, and the doc said it would be good for my feet. Hah! The man obviously never wore toe shoes.
But I’m so glad I got to take ballet and that my DD did. It teaches discipline, how to move with a little grace, and appreciation for the body and all it can do.
I had a rough-and-tumble student who took ballet and really excelled at it. He was so good and so handsome, the girls were a-twitter, and the guys gave him grudging respect. But this was HS. God knows what he went through in MS. Maybe if PE classes included a unit of ballet, that nonsense would stop.
My oldest played violin in middle and high school. There was a time when I had really good, three dimensional hearing. I could pick out a specific singer or player in a large group from up in the mezzanine, so.one time I was admiring her fingering and bowing when I realized, despite her perfect technique, the bow was not touching the strings. She admitted it, I told her I admired the grift, and she didn’t have to play after that semester.
Oh yes, Grandmas revenge. I tell my kids just wait, those babies are cute now. The teen years are looming on the horizon.
I can already ‘work’ the oldest grandwrek. Me and her’s pals.
I’m walking a fine line though, I need DIL occasionally. (;))
I hear her talk about all the things her daughter will do… hehehehehe!
