Twinkle Toes

In an effort to get our 7-year-old out of the house and doing fun things this summer, we signed her and her little sister up for a "Me and My Sister" dance camp at her dance studio. We were all excited for class to start tomorrow night, and we had our newest little dancer's ballet slippers and dance costume all laid out and ready to go! Unfortunately, their teacher and the studio owner, "Miss Denise" called me at work today to say that she had been holding out hoping for more interest in the class, but sadly there were not enough dancers to hold the class!

She did, however, let us know that she had a 2 to 3-year-old class starting tonight for four weeks (like the other camp) and invited our littlest girlie to join in. As I said, we really were signed up to get our older daughter involved this summer, and had pretty low expectations for our little one to be interested in the class if her sister was not there. I talked to my older daughter this afternoon to make sure that she would not be too upset if her sister went to class without her. She was disappointed that they wouldn't be dancing together, but she was ok with with the little girlie going to class without her. When I got home tonight, both girls were all dressed in their leotards and ballet shoes and all four of us hopped in the van and headed over to class.

Miss Denise was wonderful -- she saw our older daughter in her leotard and asked her to be the class helper (helping to put shoes on the little dancers, demonstrate the dance steps, and frankly, my girl even volunteered to step on a little spider that was scaring one of the little girls!). My littlest one was a little shy at first, but she warmed right up, never cried once (there were a couple other girls crying in the beginning), and I could see through the studio window that she followed most of what Miss Denise taught them. And, although I was worried that she wouldn't want to dance without her big sister, she brushed off all "mothering" attempts that her big sister made toward her -- she was just fine on her own!

At the end of class, all the little dancers got a stamp on their hand and the cutest little "tiara" to take home. It was something fun and different for my little girlie and heck, maybe she'll even learn a dance move or two! And, her big sister gets to feel like the "old pro" showing off her moves to the little girls!