Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tiny Dancer

Syd doesn't watch a lot of Disney movies, but she does listen to a lot of Disney music. You'll know if a certain musical piece of the Disney war machine is an especial favorite of hers, because she'll choreograph a dance number to it:


I really like to watch these, not only because my kid is awesome and brilliant and dances like an angel, but also because I can see how she's begun recently to incorporate some of the specific moves that she's learning in her ballet program. Syd's been in our local university's VERY expensive pre-college ballet program since the age of three, and it's by far the biggest item in our kid budget. Every now and then Matt questions the expense, but it's my belief that when a kid is legitimately serious about something, she deserves our best provisions for her passion. I'm also the one who enrolled her in and took her to pretty much every OTHER (cheaper) dance studio in town for classes first, including the class in which they danced to Barney songs, the one in which the other kids all sassed and disobeyed the teacher while my big-eyed babe looked at them and absorbed it all, and the one in which five minutes of every class was devoted to, I kid you not, cheerleading practice, so Syd's Pre-College Ballet program, with its dress code and its dedicated pianist and its student roles in the university's Nutcracker performances every year, thrills me, whether or not it's the reason why we eat beans and rice just that many more days each month.

Of course, then I go and let my classical dance-trained kid spin around in circles to Disney songs all day, every day, so what do I know?

2 comments:

Tina said...

We love the Tangled CD! Emma's other favorite music is just about anything by Taylor Swift.
Sometimes, helping our kids live their dream can be a bit of a drain on the budget (and other things), but if we as parents are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary, who will?

julie said...

Thankfully, Will's extracurriculars are much cheaper, mostly because she turns down 99.9% of the stuff that I offer her--"Would you like to go to outdoor nature class?" "No, thank you." "Do you want to take gymnastics twice a week instead of once?" "No, thank you." "Do you want to try soccer, since you like playing it with me?" "No, thank you." Now, when Syd's old enough to be eligible for all those options, we may be in trouble!