Taking the Scenic Route

Zane had his first dance class today!  I am happy to report it went very well.    The first part of the class was tap.  It was the second class of the session for most of the kids (and evidently there is a class before this one that is available for younger kids that I didn’t know about, so for a lot of the kids it was the second or third year).  He didn’t get all the moves, but she went pretty fast.  He did stand in line like he was supposed to and tried to imitate the moves when he could.  He did happily stomp his feet when he wasn’t getting the moves, but so did most of the kids.  lol. 

The ballet part was mercifully shorter.  He didn’t have his shoes yet since we had to order them, so he went barefoot.  (the teacher did say to make sure to get him black shoes, which was funny after my experience with the front desk.  I did tell her that the brocure says ”pink for all” and the desk didn’t know that boys wear black shoes, she was surprised and said she would make sure to tell them to change that because it wasn’t right.)   I think the lack of slippers bothered him.  He kept wanting me to put his tap shoes on again when everybody was changing shoes.  During this part of the class I had to stay right by him to keep him from wandering off about 30% of the time, but still a big improvement from the last group of classes.  During that section, I was more focused on keeping him in the same relative area and wasn’t able to see his feet as well (trying to keep my balance while squatting down…my center of gravity has really shifted from normal these days).  Zach, watching from outside, said he could tell he was trying to imitate the first and second position. 

The teacher was completely ok with me being in the room with him (this isn’t considered a parent participation class) and I think she wished some of the other parents had stayed too (Zane wasn’t the only wanderer, and there were a couple of girls who kept trying to lay down in between each little section).  Zane did seem to enjoy it.  I am glad I could be in the class so I know the language the teacher used so I can work with him this week on some of the basics.  I never took ballet or tap, and even though I sort of know the positions for ballet, I know nothing about tap.  My brain was working really hard today to try and learn the basics so I can help him at least a little bit during the week so he is a little more prepared for next week.  

He is the only boy in this class.  Not a bad thing, but he did seem to be a novelty to some of the girls there (and parents for that matter)  One girl kept telling her mom ‘he wants to marry me” every time he got within 5 feet of her.   Mom kept having to say “no, he is just trying to be your friend”.  hee hee.