My Dancing Queen

Casey started her dance class at the Little Gym today.  She is officially a Jazzy Bug.  She was very excited this morning as we were getting ready to leave the house and was twirling around and around and doing her interpretation of dance.  Jack was not impressed.  "I don't think you're going to be doing that at dance class Casey," he told her in his most authoritative voice.

She was a little timid to go into the dance room by herself but once the class started and Miss Sarah gathered all the girls together, she pretty much forgot about me.  They started with some tap dancing.  All the girls stood in a circle and held hands and tapped their toes into the middle.  You could tell Casey was probably the youngest in the class because her balance wasn't as great as the older girls, but she followed along really well.

Then they switched to their ballet shoes.  At this point, I knew Casey loved the class.  They got pretty little handkerchiefs to wave around and they just stood on their tiptoes and tried to gracefully move around the room.  She loved it.  She watched herself in the mirror and she waved her arms around and she spun in circles.  I think it was exactly what she envisioned a dance class to be.

After dancing they spend the second half of the class in the gymnastics room working on different skills and I was proud of her for following the teachers and staying with her class since this was the first time I wasn't in the room to "guide" her.

Since I have never done anything dance related, I didn't even think about what type of shoes we might need.  Luckily the Little Gym had shoes for her to borrow.  After class, I took her to the shoe store to get her own tap and ballet shoes and she has been talking about her new shoes all afternoon.  I told her she couldn't wear them outside so she has just been carrying her ballet shoes around with her and asking me to retie the bows.  She's breaking the tap shoes in now (while she wears an apron and cooks in her toy kitchen.)

So there's been some dancing, some new shoe wearing and some discussion as to whether Casey is a "ballereen" or a "balleriner".  Here's a video with some commentary by Jack as Casey showed off her new shoes this afternoon:

Casey has already asked if she can go back tomorrow.  Poor thing has to wait a week.