Watch Out, World

Rachel took her first dance class in the fall. The Little Ballerinas class she wanted to take was all full when I called to sign her up, but because of high demand they started a second class. Turns out only 3 girls took the second class because the others had already signed up for other classes, so Rachel had a very personal experience for her first dance class, which I'm sure was good for her ability to start grasping the concepts and learning some control over her body.

The class recital was in early December, and the teacher had the 3 girls perform a routine to Madonna's version of "Santa Baby." They could *not* have been cuter.

Here's Miss Rachel occupying herself with coloring before it was her group's turn to go on stage.
She had a bit of trouble finding her mark...twice. They had moved some things around during rehearsal and she was the only one with a purple piece of tape instead of white. She did fine adjusting the first time, but when it happened again and people started chuckling, she brought her elbow up to her mouth and looked very sad for a brief moment. I was about half a second away from going down there and getting her when she ran over and joined in a line and started back up with the routine, and she did really well the rest of the time.

The pose at the end. I wish it was clearer, but it was harder than anything for the camera to capture any decent light in the room.

I think they were supposed to be taking bows here. This was just before the teacher motioned to them to blow some kisses, but I think Rachel was the only one who did.

Rachel with her teacher, Miss Sue.

A tired-out little girl post-performance.

She announced after the recital that she wanted to take cheerleading next. The cheerleading class also performed a routine during the recital, and apparently she thought that seemed cool. The starting age is too high (7, I think?), so instead she's taking Dance-A-Rama I, which teaches the basics of ballet and tap. The ballet will mostly be a refresher for what she's already learned, but I think that's good because she'll feel really confident with that part and it will probably help her with being comfortable learning tap. Plus she's super-excited about the tap shoes and all the clicky sounds she gets to make with those :)

If I can figure out how to upload the video and just get the recital performance as a segment, I'll post it here. I'm not totally ignorant technologically (although I don't know how to upload video yet), it's more a matter of finding out how and making the time to do it.