parent watch day (11.5.09)

Parent watch day at Studio D. It’s the day all the parents get together to see whose child is the best, whose child is the cutest, whose child behaves the best, etc. etc. For some reason even though Brittain thoroughly enjoyed the summer dance “camp,” she hasn’t been as thrilled about the weekly ballet/tap combination class. I’m not sure if it’s that we can’t get the nap thing figured out so that she’s awake and alert and ready to get dressed when the time comes, or if perhaps “dance” is just not her thing. Whatever it is, every Thursday at 4:30, whether it’s me or Dan who is home to get her ready, we prepare ourselves for the worst…and yes, in our opinion it’s always that bad. Fortunately, most weeks by the time we get the hair in a bun and force the leotard and tights on her, she miraculously becomes a different child and is suddenly excited about going. On the day we were to go and actually get to watch why it’s worth what we have to go through each week to get her dressed, I took a little more care with her hair. Somehow I talked her into letting me fix it twice when the first time I put it up it was crooked and also had several visual “lumps”. But as far as her outfit went, I haven’t invested a lot of money into several different outfits because I’ve been holding out to see if she was going to want to stick with it. I did my best with the Wal-Mart pink leotard and skirt and hoped that no one would get close enough to her to notice the severely picked tights.

Dan was working so I invited Connie (Gramy) to come along and watch. After all, she is the one who pays for the class, so she deserved to see where her hard-earned money was going. Brittain and I arrived early and I perched myself in one of the folding chairs trying to juggle my huge camera and also a small video camera. Gramy arrived shortly before the class began. The setup of where we were sitting was a little awkward. There were chairs set up in the back and the side of the class, so you were either looking at the backs of all the children or the sides of them. I had chosen a seat in the back thinking that this would be a better view as I would also be able to see the front of her in the mirror across the wall. Throughout the class I found myself thinking strange thoughts.

“I can’t believe I didn’t cut that huge white tag out of her leotard. How did the rest of the parents know to do that? Oh wait, maybe it’s because my kid’s outfit is a cheap one from Wal-Mart so you can just SEE the tag through the cheap, thin material.”

“Does Brittain have a beer gut? These are 3 year olds. Aren’t they all supposed to have those cute little guts? Where are the other girls’ guts?”

“I feel so old. I went on a beach trip and babysat this teacher when she was a newborn baby!”

But then my thoughts were interrupted when the teacher began to ask the kids questions. “Do any of you remember what this is called?” “Who can do this step?” I shifted to thinking, “Ok. Come on, Brittain. Just answer ONE of the questions.” You’re a smart girl. I know you know this stuff. I was doing my best not to get discouraged and throw my hands in the air saying, “I give up. Something is clearly wrong with her. She doesn’t know any of these answers. We might as well quit now.” But I also had that uneasy feeling you get around even family. You want everyone to think you’re doing a good job as a mother, and I have this ability to automatically think everyone glares at me and thinks to themselves, “If only SHE was doing a better job, her child would be better at this.” It became glaringly obvious that Brittain was just not going to answer a question and at one point Connie leaned over to me and asked if the other kids in the class were older than her. I wasn’t completely sure of the answer, but I was pretty sure that the kid who was answering almost every question was actually younger than her. None of it mattered of course, but I guess both of us, in our own ways were trying to justify the reason she wasn’t piping up when a question was asked. At one point near the end of the hour, Connie leaned over to me again and said, “She’s good at that.” And it was something equally as difficult as a dog trick.

When we left that evening Connie asked me if I remembered any of the steps and positions back from when I took dance. Especially at that moment, I couldn’t pull anything from the dance classes I had taken 20 years prior. So, she suggested that I start looking the dance steps up on the internet and going over them with Brittain each week so that she would be more prepared for class. I left the class that evening feeling completely drained and exhausted despite the fact that I had been sitting the entire time. I had my work cut out for me.

The last few Thursdays, Dan has been around to help with getting ready for dance. I think we’ve both agreed that if things don’t change, after the dance recital in May, we may try something else for next year. Maybe this is just not up her ally. Maybe we’ll try violin…or maybe we’ll wait til she can choose something on her own based on her interests. I remind myself again. She’s 3. There’s plenty of time for it all.

The icing on the cake was later that evening as I was getting Brittain ready for bed, she stopped and said, “Mommy, do you know what this dance step is?” I said no. And she said, “It’s a Sur le cou-de-pied.”

Yep. Exactly.

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