My Tiny Dancer

Nora has been into all things “nah-nah” (that’s ballerina in Nora-speak) for a long time now.

Months ago, she found a random pair of those mary jane socks buried in the bottom of her drawer. You know the kind: They look like they have a pair of mary jane shoes painted on them. They make a ton of them in baby sizes, but—as I’ve come to find out—not so much for the toddler/pre-school crowd. But Nora is OBSESSED with them and calls them her “nah-nah socks” because the mary jane part also looks like a ballet slipper, I suppose. (I’ve since found black and white pairs at Target for $1.25, so now she has like five pairs. Woot woot!)

Anyway, last year, I looked into the area dance schools and found that most of them start accepting students at age 3. However, since I was on maternity leave—and therefore had a newborn baby—come Nora’s birthday in the fall, it wasn’t top of mind for us. Of course, she’s become even more obsessed with dance and ballerinas since her third birthday, and in November, I started looking into classes again. It took a bit, but I found something that would work for us, and Nora started her dance classes last Saturday.

It’s adorable. Seriously adorable. I mean, I figured it would be. And then, when I took Nora shopping for all of the “gear” she was going to need (ballet and tap shoes, dance tights, leotard), I kept feeling little squeezes in my heart when I saw how excited she was over all of it. And then, when the day actually came, and she got dressed and went marching into that class all by herself? HEART EXPLODED.

I actually made a rookie mistake on the first day of class. I assumed I’d be able to sit in there and watch her during class, and take all sorts of adorable photos and video. Not the case. The teacher and her assistant take the girls back to the studio and us parents sit out in the “waiting room” area during the class. For the tap portion, they do come out into a room that we can see through the windows in the door. During this portion, the girls are often distracted by us, so I can see why they do it the way they do!

Probably needless to say… Nora is LOVING it. All she talks about all week is how many more days there are left until she gets to go to dance class again. She follows directions, she holds the teachers’ hands. She calls the other girls her friends (there are only two others in her class; I love that it’s small!). It’s so cute. It’s kinda pricey as far as preschooler hobbies go, but as long as she’s enjoying it, I don’t really mind. We want to expose her to a lot of different stuff so she can choose what she likes best as she grows. And we based the decision to put her in dance on her current interests—I didn’t have any preconceived expectations that my daughters HAVE to do dance.

The recital is in June. I can’t believe my baby is going to be up on a stage (assuming all goes well, of course).

In the meantime, I’m going to try not to spend a ton of money on the fantastically cute leotards that are out there. But she sure does need a purple one. :)