For what seems to be over a year Leela has been asking me to take her to a dance class. I of course am certain she is too young for a formal dance class and have encouraged her to just dance in the living room(we did upgrade to pandora one), told her she could use her dress up slippers as ballet slippers, and assured her you can still tap dance on the kitchen floor without tap shoes. Needless to say she still starts a lot of conversations with, "When I'm in dance Class," or "When I am so and so's age and in dance class," and pretty much wears the one hand me down leotard we have with pretend ballet slippers everyday for part of the day, and on our trip to Chicago informed me I should pack more tights. Yes she wore tights one day in 100 degree weather. After all that I couldn't help but think maybe I am being a little uptight about this dance class thing.
So when the City of Costa Mesa's Parks and Recreation catalog arrived in March and I happened upon Fairy Tale Princess camp which is basically intro to tap/jazz, songs, stories, and crafts for three year olds with an affinity for dressing like princesses' and talking about their future enrollment in dance classes I thought, we are in. I was surely the first person to sign up and get the deal on early bird registration, and kept it a secret everyday for the last 4 months knowing full well something may derail this dream dance camp.
I honestly only told Leela about dance class Saturday evening to encourage her to get some sleep and be excited for the plane ride back to California(there was a lot of talk from her about moving to Chicago) and so that she would have a little heads up of what was to come Monday morning.
We did almost miss our plane(that might be an entire other post) and part of me thinks what kept her little 3 year old legs running through midway to catch it, was the hope of finally setting foot in a dance class with real ballet slippers and tap shoes. I didn't tell her they have dance classes in Chicago too.
Fast forward to Monday morning and there we were Leela actually sitting fairly still for me to brush the tangles out of her hair and pull it back, fully dressed in her black tights and leotard, which are always a highlight when out in public. I mean she was ready. No arguments about putting on shoes or getting in the car or why we can't take a bath right this minute, or pour food coloring on everything or even why it isn't really all that possible to paint really quickly before we get in the car.
The good news seemed to just keep rolling in. We went through the mail and in it was her info packet for preschool the highly anticipated picture of her teacher waiting inside.
Certain this morning couldn't get any better she encouraged me to tear it open since we had some extra time and this might be where things started to take a turn. We pull out the picture and Leela just looks at me like, what? Your sending me to school with him? Yes that's right Leela's first preschool teacher, is a great teacher, who also happens to be a young man. A young man with a shaved head and two largish round earrings one for each ear. He basically turns everything little LP knows to be true about teachers, gender roles, and life as a 3 year old right on its head.
Hanging his picture on the door seemed to help and telling her he will visit us at home first because she is new to the school helped a little more, then finding out her first week we can all go as a family for an hour to check it all out helped a little more, and knowing that at least she was going to have a dance teacher helped a lot more. So there we were a little shaken up on our way to dance class, Leela asking me if I would wait outside and read a book just in case she needed me on her first day of dance camp(or in case the dance teacher was a man too), of course I will, I assured her.
As we arrive it takes a minute to find the right building the right door and then somehow as I go to open the door I look through it and all looks dark, no one around, and sure enough the door is locked. Yep locked out of Fairytale Princess Camp. I of course thinking, I have somehow gone to the wrong place call the city to find out the right place, and as it turns out we were not only the first people to sign up for this particular dance session, we were the only people and someone out there in dance camp world forgot to call us. All that needs to be said at this point is note the difference in facial expressions from Leela pre dance lockout and post dance lockout........not her best Monday.
The good news is Leela got to take a dance class for real Tuesday afternoon for free and wore real tap and ballet shoes and the city will refund us so we can take 3 more dance classes the next 3 weeks. She really loved the class as much as I thought she might, and followed instructions for an entire hour and I have to admit her little feet in first position and tapping around the house trying to shuffle are adorable.
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