Willa starts dance

Willa has been talking about dance lessons for a while now. I'm not sure where she got the idea from, maybe Katerina Kitty Cat? I finally got my laziness onto the computer to sign her up for a ballet/tap combo class at the Rec center. One thing I really disliked about Houston was that there were no local Rec centers. If you didn't have a neighborhood pool, you had to pay big bucks to join a gym in order to have a place to swim. (By the way, should Rec center be capitalized? Probably not, but it looks so strange and insignificant as "rec center".) Or, if you wanted to do dance or anything fun like that it was through a private and expensive studio. Luckily, Las Vegas has plenty of Rec centers that offer lots of classes and fun things (I'm even planning to do preschool next year at one).

For the cool price of $30, I signed Willa up for six weeks of dance class. Here is a little video of the day her tap shoes came in the mail. She was SO excited!

First day of class, SO excited!

The class is worth about the $30 we paid. They do a little ballet history, a minute or two going through the positions, and then a few minutes stretching. Then they follow the teacher as she dances in different styles to different music: classical, hip hop, etc. The teacher is a mystery and I'm not quite sure that she actually knows how to dance. She's not great with kids and left Willa high and dry once when she broke a nail and rushed to get a band-aid to try and save it, but all the girls in there are having a blast. I figure that it more of a body awareness class. Usually they try a grande jette and some other tricks each class and it's hilarious watching the girls try to figure out how to get their little bodies to move. It's tricky to run and then jump in the middle, or to jump and twirl and land on the other foot. It's a whole hour and Willa has a blast every time and June follows the teacher with her eyes and tries to imitate all the movements as she stays by me.

It's perfect for now and if Willa shows any special affinity or promise, then we can kick it up a notch and find something a little more professional. I doubt that will ever happen because I'm pretty sure she inherited my problems with spatial awareness and Ryan's unflexibility (the other girls are almost doing the splits and Willa's poor legs are totally bent to 90 degrees even with the teacher trying to stretch them out). So, we're just enjoying having some girly, no-pressure dancing going on!

Here's an unrelated photo of Willa with some new glasses on! She got her new prescription and Costco had some really cute frames. I love Costco and I'm excited they have an optical department, but as you see Willa holding our ticket in line, you can imagine that I also love the intimacy and service of a great stand-alone optical shop where you go in and immediately have two or three people assessing your needs and serving you. That definitely beats pulling a ticket and waiting with two rowdy girls in a shopping cart until your number comes up.