Ballerinas and Butterflies
Mireya is taking ballet classes. Actually it's aptly named "creative movement," a phrase designed, no doubt, to manage parental expectations. After watching the class for a few weeks I've come to realize something about teaching ballet to three and four year olds.
It requires a saint.
Surrounded with little girls with the attention span of butterflies, somehow the teachers manage to get them to follow instructions for 45 minutes.
Well, it's more like 30 minutes with a bit of herding in between, but miraculous nonetheless.
Now with just two weeks to go before the big recital, the dance is really coming together.
Okay, maybe coming together is too strong a term. You know how a flock of butterflies will descend on a field in a chaos of flapping wings and still manage to look nice?
It's like that.
Minus the flapping.
Okay, so there's a little flapping.
Let's just say is it's a good thing the dresses are really cute.
As we've dutifully brought our mini ballerinas to class over these few weeks, Miss Tracie and Miss Christina have gently, and repeatedly taken them through the moves. They've showed them how to curtsy. How to walk like a ballerina. How to sit up straight and not lay flat on the floor making faces in the mirror. How to pick the flower from the rose bush, pirouette, and show it to the audience.
In fact, there are the preschool equivalent of 5000 steps in this routine and I'm just hoping that Mireya won't head for the wings the minute her pink shoes hit the stage.
If she does, I guess it will make a good story to tell at our next family reunion - accompanied with the blurry photo of a barely recognizable ballerina, fleeing her adoring audience.
All of whom will be applauding madly.
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