15 May 2009

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer

Today, I've been in the kitchen finishing up my baking duties for Shaun and Emily's wedding tomorrow. Yesterday, I did three loaves of Pumpkin bread, early this morning, I did two loaves of Zucchini bread, and I just put a Lemon Pound Cake into the oven. Let me just say that the Lemon thing had better come out tasty, because that sucker was what I like to call LABOR INTENSIVE. Jeesh. Zest the lemons. Rub the zest into the caster sugar. Supreme the lemons. Soak the eggs in hot water for 10 minutes (really?). Anywho, to keep at least one of the kids from getting underfoot, I put in Barbie: 12 Dancing Princesses. Charis was enraptured.

She was enraptured mostly because she so badly wants to take ballet lessons. Last week, I took her to a pre-ballet dance recital to gauge her interest, and it turns out her interest is high. Two highlights for me were: A) When two groups of the youngest girls filed onstage and promptly got confused. Charis noticed that they were all mixed up, and spoke up about it: "MAMA, THOSE GIRLS HAVE GOT TO STAY WITH THEIR TEAMS!" You probably can't tell we're more about team sports than ballet at our house. B) When the littlest girls were doing the "Circle Dance." The voice in the song would tell them "circle right," and "circle left," and those instructions had no bearing whatsoever on which directions the girls circled. I CANNOT wait until Charis is a part of this.

Anyway, when I came into the living room to check up on her midway through the ARDUOUS CAKE PROCESS, I caught her gracefully twirling and spinning (are those the same things?). I reached for my camera, but she got shy all of a sudden (Charis? Shy?) and wouldn't let me. So this fall, she'll be joining other 5-year-olds in learning how to circle left and stay with their teams. Should make for some good video! Hopefully, she'll let me take pictures of her then in her frilly "uniform."

(Ballet. What has my life come to?)

3 comments:

Amy said...

I love it! I always wanted to be a ballerina...it was my dream from the time I could talk, I think. CLEARLY that didn't work out for me... :) And BTW, isn't it "Hold me closer, Tony Danza?" :)

NLY said...

Someone beat me to it..Tony Danza!! Maybe someday Charis can do a ballet routine to Neil Diamond just like her mom!

Carly said...

That is hilarious!! I am still endlessly teased about when I asked my mom what color my "costume" would be for t-ball...I guess I had the opposite problem. Alas, my own ballet career was short lived -- I was positive I knew more about the art than my crazy instructor; I'm sure Charis is far better behaved than I was though ;-)