Watching My Butterfly Improve in Ballet

So, we’ve improved! It’s amazing. If you stick with something long enough, and keep going, and keep slugging it out as it were, well, you get somewhere – you improve!

I was so overjoyed on Tuesday with Christiane in Ballet Class! She was doing nearly everything. She dropped me being right by her side doing every move right along with her.

We'd practiced their skips (practice is so key. I mean I know, but now I know). She did first position, which we’d also practiced — so well! And the teacher, Ms. Lori, was impressed. Then she did second position all by herself! And everything else. 

She followed her fellow student, Gianna when Gianna was the leader, and not Christiane. Her chosen butterfly color was orange during their make-believe session when hey learn to act out imaginary events with their body movements — like catching a butterfly. She only played with her skirt, lowering and rearranging it, for half the time.

And guess what, next week, instead of 30 minutes, we have been invited to expand our class to 45. Woo hoo! Go Christiane! And Gianna (the amazing ballerina who she is, very quiet and gentle and so involved in the whole process. She’s transported by ballet.)

Gianna’s grandmother Andrea and I sit there transported by what fun this all is — for us! Too cute, by far. They are terribly adorable trying to do all these things and we each look forward to our Tuesday afternoons as huge standouts within the week.

I plan around Tuesdays and Thursdays (music time with Clea-Noelle), honestly, I do. If my husband, Fotis  and I have to be away, we either leave after or come back before. I don’t miss one. I am obsessed, hooked, what have you. I’m there.

Now, back to Gianna’s grandmother, Andrea. She’s very remarkable. She went back for her degree when she turned 50, thinking, "It’s now or never." She quit her job. Her husband supported her decision so much that, for four years, he did ALL the grocery shopping and made her dinner each night — with candles — when she got back late from class. Something warm and beautiful on the table would await her return.

Now that’s support! And a grand Valentine’s story. I said, Tell me more! We gain snippets of conversation/information in between our oohs and aahs during class. Plus our outright laughter as Christiane repeats loudly over Ms. Lori: "Hello toes, Good-bye toes," while doing her sit-down toe points, when she charges with her tongue out while “skipping” across the floor and while both our daughters flutter like little orange and purple butterflies about the room.

For more of my daily musings about everyday life, please visit my personal blog at www.fivemakesseven.com