Contemplating the Next Level

When I was a kid, I took ballet for approximately half a second, before the teacher told my mother she was wasting her time by keeping me in the class. Now, I think that advice had more to do with my complete inability to pay attention to ANYTHING the teacher would tell us to do, but given my general lack of grace, there's a good chance the ballet school just didn't want to have an injured toddler on its hands after I'd done something spectacular like falling over while standing still.

I may or may not have seen Brigid do just that very exact thing in her final ballet class last weekend.

She doesn't plie when the teacher tells her to plie. She doesn't point her toes when the teacher tells her to point her toes. She doesn't spin when the teacher tells her to spin.

She does, however, spin when the teacher tells her to stand still.

She fell over three times in her last class. She didn't wait her turn to do ballet walks across the floor. She never walks on her toes when the rest of her class does, even though she won't stop doing it when she's at home. When she was supposed to be sitting in a circle with the rest of the class?

She would run over to me for a hug.

And when I would tell her to go back to the circle and listen to the teacher?

She would look at me with big eyes and say, 'But, mommy. I just wanted ONE hug.'

(In case you're keeping score at home, the kid is winning. Every battle. And that's not even counting the Friday night coin-in-the-fountain wish she made for me to 'stay home with [her] FOREVER'. If you're looking for my heart, it's in a million pieces on the floor of a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, ok?)

Now, some of this might have to do with the fact that I'm in the room with her during the lesson, which isn't allowed in the next level of classes at the Atlanta Ballet School. And maybe I can take comfort in knowing that Brigid wasn't the most poorly behaved student in the class, just an easily distracted follower.

But, if I'm not in the class, if I can't even see the class except for a few scheduled parental viewing days during the year, how do I know she's paying attention? HOW DO I KNOW SHE'S NOT THE LITTLE RINGLEADER OF DISASTER?

Look at her. You're telling me she's not capable of leading a ballet-shoed revolt of tiny tutu-wearing ballerinas?
The Atlanta Ballet won't even know what hit them.