Dance Class and Dinner

I love my laptops. I was standing in the kitchen, cooking steak and mixed veggies with roasted shallots (our favorite thing in the world) while I read email, wrote the beginning of this post and looked out into the family room where the bear and the Mrs. were lying on the carpet in front of the big Crayola floor pad - coloring, drawing and practicing letters.

I was dreaming all day of my steak and potato dinner but arrived home to discover alien arms and legs sprouting from my potatoes (when exactly did I buy those?) so we are rolling with just meat and frozen mixed veggies tonight - bummer.

I did not write about this at the time, but last Friday we took the bear to a free trail "gym" class. She was timid at first, as per usual, when she is near kids that are foreign to her, but within ten minutes or so she had joined in the fun - tumbling, running, jumping and (her fave) hanging on the balance bar and pulling her legs up to meet her hands - essentially folding herself in half. After the class, over a shared chocolate chip/mint/m&m milkshake, we decided to enroll her in a 20-week dance/gym class. The class of 3-6 year old kids meets weekly and includes roughly 1/3 ballet, 1/3 tap and 1/3 gymnastics. This was a big decision for us as, up until this point, we have steered clear of scheduling such organized activities. The last thing that we will allow to happen is a overscheduled child (and parents) engaged in nothing but structured play with adults leading the way. In fact, I wrote about that here, a while back.

Right now we are excited, as is the bear. She already has a bounty of handed-down tutus, ballet shoes and leotards thanks to a very generous cousin but now she needs tap shoes...before the 1st class convenes this Saturday.

What is pretty rad about this place is that they allow you to quickly, effortlessly and without question switch to another class offered for your child's age group. So if we have plans one Saturday or if she wants to give their weekday evening sports class a try in a month or so, wham, they will accommodate. That was a big factor in us plunking down the few hundreds bucks for the Fall semester - knowing that we can be flexible and diverse.