Twice now I’ve dropped Sarah off for her ballet class. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, because this is what happened last time.
This year she’s a lot better. She went willingly. There were no tears, no outbursts, no clinging to my leg or pressing her sad little wet nose against the window of the studio.
This time, I only saw the smallest a flicker of uncertainty cross her face. But as I watched her settle into her circle of pink leggings and little bodies I knew she would be okay.
I offer photographic proof:
Emma is taking lessons again too. She’s an old pro.
The days before dance lessons began we went to buy Emma new slippers and a bodysuit. To give you an idea of tall this kid is – know that her tights and her bodysuit are size 8-10. She’s 6.5 years old! Sarah is wearing Emma’s old stuff. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to care very much about the hand-me-down factor.
Our journey began at Sears. Bodysuits were $17.99, were made of 95 per cent polyester and five per cent something else. The sheen of the fabric was made more powerful by the store’s unflattering florescent lighting. Mark cringed. I had my misgivings. Who likes to wear this stuff when they’re sweating? Not me. But I was willing to overlook it because after all, we’re only talking about 45 minutes/week of moderate activity, right? I figured her sweat glands would survive the ordeal if we clothed her in naturally breathable fabrics for the remaining 23 hours and 15 minutes of the day.
So Mark put the kibosh on that purchase. Ok then, I said. Should we leave it here and go to another store, like that professional dance place near us? If I do this, I reasoned, we’re taking the chance that (a) there may not be one in her size and we have to go to a third store and the more likely (b) that it will cost twice as much.
The answer was okay, go for it, I was to sully forth to the dance store. BUT I failed to realize that I would be the one doing the shopping with the children, alone, and that we were fast approaching the beginnings of Dance Season and that the store was going to be filled to capacity with lithe dancing types, antsy children and eager parents.
Shopping like this, with children in tow, has its frustrations. I’ll skip ahead and say that we did find a body suit and slippers for Emma. Admittedly, the Professional Dance Version of the pink body suit looks and feels a lot better than its counterpart at Sears. I shelled out the $28.00, plus about $20.00 for the slippers.
A lady at the checkout ahead of me was buying tap shoes (among other things) for her two year-old daughter. They were teeny little things. The girl was tiny. My daughters didn’t even know how to skip at that age. Tap shoes? Inwardly I rolled my eyes. I have mixed feelings about enrolling our kids into expensive extra-curricular activities, the additional costs of accessorizing, and how some parents (including myself) have a tendency to go whole hog with it all. Here I was, with nearly fifty bucks worth of stuff in my hands. And for what?
I can’t believe we’re buying into it. These kids are LITTLE. These are RECREATIONAL classes. I don’t think anyone here aspires to move up to the National Ballet. All they really need for a recreational dance class are shorts, a t-shirt and bare feet. But here I was, at a professional-level dance store buying all this stuff. Why? I’m not quite sure. On one hand the head-to-toe pinkness is terribly cute, but it serves no practical purpose at this age, does it? Perhaps we, as mothers, are just reliving a bit of our childhood fantasies and feeding our love to play dress up. Or do we just buy it because we can?
