Dance! Dance!

Take a good look..... This will probably be the last time we'll see Whit doing something like this. 

Starting dance lessons with her was kind of a random thing. I had her in gymnastics, which she LOVED, but her teacher was not equipped to be teaching a class of 3 years olds.  Good gym teacher, but no idea about how to control a class of toddlers. It was mayhem. Expensive mayhem. They were running all over the place. The day Whit ran out of the gym and out the door was our last day there. Until she got older, or they hired better teachers, perhaps we would be back. 

However, Whitley has a need to be busy. Very busy. If she is not being very busy, she is being very bad. And mean. To me. She/We/I needed to do something/anything and I had a few girlfriends from play group who had their girls in dance, so I enrolled Whit. 

She never liked it from the beginning. WAY too much standing around and pointing and flexing toes. BORING! And far too little stage time for all the effort. And this teacher didn't let her run out of the class. Imagine that. To compensate Whit did a lot of flopping, flapping, and floor rolls during lessons. In the beginning. I will say though, over the course of about 6 months she started to do a little better, combined with the efforts of her pre-school teacher, at listening and following direction. More toe pointing, less flopping and flapping. Unfortunately even though she got better at following directions, a love of dance never developed. Which is fine. I wasn't surprised to tell you the truth. Getting her to dance never got easier. We decided to stick it out until the recital. 

I'm going to just say it, I don't think these are the best pictures. Excuse me. Quality of photos. They look really washed out for some reason. Sorry photog. They were taken the week before the recital. And Ryan (Whit's dad) took her the day these were being taken so I'm assuming that her teacher put her hair in the ponies. But just same, pretty darn cute. I don't have any good recital pictures worth posting. I am going to have Ryan send me his pictures from the recital as mine turned out awful. 

We all went, along with Dad, Mimi and Papa- Ryan's parents. It was fun. She was in the back row both dances, either for her size or dancing skills, perhaps both, so Ryan and I were practically sitting on strangers shoulders trying to get good footage. I think he did better. He was wedged in a better spot.

 I still can't believe I'm doing this kind of stuff. Dance recitals. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be the kind of mother who did the whole- dance recital thing. It was a little surreal but so fun! To tell you the truth I'm a little bummed we probably won't ever do it again. I made sure to soak it up and went all out. Stage mamma style. She hated having her hair curled, but reveled in the blush and mascara and lipstick part. She kept asking for "just a little more". Wonder where that come from???? I loved it.

Even though Whitley doesn't love to dance, she is a natural performer and loves having all eyes on her. She had that "look" on her face the whole time. Wide eyes, huge smile. Amazed that she was so lucky to have everyone looking right at her. Who gets that lucky? She stuck to the most of the moves, thank goodness. We were all wondering what was in store for us as far as her performance was going to go. I'm just going to say it, she was, by far, the cutest girl at the show. Sorry. It's true. 

Afterwards, when the pony tail was immediately ripped out, I asked Whit if she wanted to stay in dance or do gymnastics again. You guessed it. 

Gymnastics has a very long trampoline. And an enormous boingy carpeted floor. And a snack machine. 

I'll just guard the doors.

These pictures crack me up. Because this is NOT Whitley. I wonder what they bribed her with to get her to-

1. Smile

2. Put her hair up

3. Hold still and POSE?!