My Little Dancing Queen

As a child, I danced all the time. I got more seriously involved in dance as a teenager, mostly hip hop and jazz dance. I took such a liking to it, and it did a number on my self confidence. While other teenagers my age were engaging in promiscuous sexual activity or getting involved with drugs and alcohol as an escape from their real life problems, I was escaping into the world of dance. I am so thankful for the opportunities I had to dance during those years, and for what it did for my self esteem and life.

Because of that, I wanted nothing more then to have a little girl to pass my love of dance on to. I was thrilled when we knew at least one of the twins would be a girl. Mommy's very own little princess!

I have waited these 3 years, somewhat impatiently, to get Merasia involved in some sort of dance class. Last week, before her birthday, I started looking into what was offered for classes nearby, and getting her enrolled. I was able to get her into a ballet-type class for her age group called Early Creative Movement through a local Ballet company near us. Her first class was yesterday, and I was so excited to see how she interacted and what  she thought of it. She was pretty excited when we got there, too!

Seriously?! How ADORABLE does she look in that leotard and tights??

We live in a small town, and we enrolled her in class at the last minute, so we had to scramble at some used clothing places in town to find her a leotard and tights at the last minute. I totally cannot wait to get her an adorable pink sparkly leotard and ballet slippers, and tights later this week! I am soo excited!

She was a little timid at first in getting involved with stretching and warming up....

She soon loosened up though and got right into it!

I loved watching Merasia warm up and get involved in dancing and having fun. She was friendly with the other children in the class, and sometimes even forgot that I was even there, which is great since she has slight separation anxiety at times. At one point though, she just stopped what she was doing in class, and ran over to give me a big hug, as if to thank me for bringing her into this class. It melted my heart!

She had so much fun gallopping, skipping, running, twirling, and spinning across the room.

I especially love this picture of her really getting into it:

She did fall a couple of times and had a complete meltdown each time, but after some snuggles from mama, she got right back out there and continued on dancing. She loved playing with these scarves the teacher brought out for the children to interact with and dance with:

She even got a little solo time to "fly her magic carpet" (i.e. the scarf) around the room!

She had so much fun and I can't wait to take her back next week! She took direction well and was very well behaved, and I loved watching her dance around and interact with children other then our friend's children and to have something to do on her own without her brother is very beneficial for both of them.

I am also so very thankful for the opportunity to pass on and share my love of dance with my daughter. She definitely has her mommy's dancing genes, and was born to dance. Of course, if she decides dance is no longer her thing at some point in her life, that's fine too and we will definitely not push her to continue, but support her in other areas of interest. :-) For now, though, I am soaking up her love of dance!