the monkey house: August 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Go, Voltron Force!

My daughter drew Voltron. I am obviously doing something right.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

One, two, three … quit

What you're supposed to be looking at here is a bunch of awesome photos (maybe even some video) from Kaylee's Hip Hop dance class. But you won't get any.

Sorry.

We missed the first day of class last Saturday due to a nasty bout of illness. No big deal, we were able to make up the class Wednesday night. The only problem was that class was filled with older kids – and there were about twice as many as Kaylee expected.

She spent the entire class watching from the doorway, next to tears because she was too nervous to go in.

Near the end, she was dancing (still in the doorway) and had learned all the moves already. We talked about how we'd come back on Saturday and she'd be able to show all the younger kids in her class how it was done.

Well, that was the plan. And you know how plans and I get along so very well.

Everything was fine all morning, she was excited to go. She even did some of the routine as Mom pulled the curlers out of her hair. (Yes, curlers. I'm not sure why either.) She was even fine when we got to the studio.

But as soon as it was time to walk into class, she froze again.

I could have pushed her in and forced her to do it. And there would have been some tears, but she would have loved it if she'd just tried. And I would have really loved some help from the teacher (who knew she had a hard time on Wednesday), but he didn't even say hi to her on the way in – much less offer to take her in and introduce her to one of the five kids who were lined up and ready to dance. And I'm a little mad at myself for being so frustrated with her – but I just know she would have loved it if she'd have just tried it.

Instead we all came home and took a three hour nap. (Something she apparently really needed and probably had a lot to do with not wanting to try something new.)

We'll try this class thing again later. But we'll go someplace where they actually pay attention to the kids next time.