I am so thankful for Swim America and Tumble America. First they are run by a great family ;) have a great staff and it gets my little monster out of the house a couple of times a week to not only run off some steam but teach her some great things. This past 5 months we have had Harlow in a dance class at Tumble America. It was a struggle for awhile. She cried through almost 2 months of classes when she first started but finally she got use to not having mom and dad in the dance room with her. She started enjoying class, making friends and learning some actual dance technique. She has the greatest memory of any child I've ever met. She can recite word for word, quotes from movies, sing all the top 40 songs on the radio and mimic and remember dance moves. They started working on a dance for the winter dance recital and she was pro at remembering what to do.
With the recital approaching we started talking about dancing on a big stage in front of all her friends and family. We also read books about ballerina and performing. She is a pretty shy to begin with and doesn't like to perform in front of anyone other than Pete and myself. I was pretty nervous that she wouldn't even make it onto the stage, and if she did, I was almost certain she would freeze in fright and not dance. But boy did she prove me wrong! Luckily she got to watch cousin Amelia perform before her as well as a lot of the other classes so she figured out how things worked. And daddy stayed close by to encourage her and reassure her. I sat in the audience with baby sister and my mom and dad. When it was her turn to go up, coach Morgan put them in their places on stage. The look of terror on her face actually made me a little teary eyed. I thought for sure she was going to be traumatized but the second the music started she started moving! She danced through the entire song and copied all of the dance moves that coach Morgan was doing off to the side.
I do have to say that there was a little bit of bribery involved to get to that outcome. Earlier in the morning we went out and bought chocolate cupcakes for all of us but the deal was she couldn't have hers unless she danced on the big stage like a big girl. When her dance was finished she ran off the stage and the first thing she said was, "I get a chocolate cupcake!" But hey, whatever works right?
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