I spuddle.

- The Bun started dance class last week.   He’d been wanting to take dance class for at least a year, I think it started with skating and then while learning how to skate, he deduced (correctly) that ice was slippery and that ballet was effectively dancing without the whole troublesome slippery ice issue interfering with the enjoyment of it all.

- The Bun has always been a dancer.   Since he could get up and move, he has, every time there is music on.   While we are driving, he seat-dances to songs on the radio.   Sometimes he says, “Mummy!  Look!  My eyes are dancing!”   Then he blinks them around manically.   “I can’t stop!  Look now, my tongue is dancing, too!”   You can imagine what that looks like.

- I found a dance class that — although it’s really far away from our house — combined ballet, tap and jazz.   Something I thought would give him a sense of all the different kinds of dancing he could do, not including eye dancing and tongue dancing, which he’s already pretty good at.   He’s also really good at Word Dancing.   Word Dancing is when a movie ends and you leap out of your seat as though you’ve been electrocuted and enthusiastically crump all over the furniture and often your little sister, too.

- We went to the class.  It was a nice day.   On the way, we passed some horses and a cow.    We used to live way out there in the sticks and I’m glad we don’t anymore, though I guess if we did, we wouldn’t have to drive so far to get to ballet.

- The class consists of 15 little girls in pale pink frothy tutus.   And The Bun.

- The Bun was not pleased.

- The Birdy was not pleased.   She was not to be allowed to dance?   WTF?   This, after all, is where she takes ballet, too.   On a different day.    The Birdy commenced throwing herself against the viewing glass and wailing.    The sun conspired to make the viewing glass more of a mirror than an actual window, so everyone in the waiting room watched The Birdy leaping around, not very gracefully, and screaming MY TURN! at the top of her lungs.

- The Bun, alone in a crowd,  was blinded by the pink.   Tears threatened.   His chin wobbled.  This was not the dancing he had in mind.   This was…. GIRL DANCING.   What if they made him wear a dress?   Who were all these girls?   Why were they all staring at him?   Why was the teacher speaking Spanish?  (She wasn’t.)  Why did he think the teacher was speaking Spanish?  (No idea.)    WHY DIDN’T HE DANCE?

- I stuck to my guns.   After all, he had $65 worth of fancy dancing shoes and besides, I KNEW HE WOULD LOVE IT.   I called him to the door of the class.   I applied my best Happy Mummy Brightly Smiling Enthusiastically face.   I said, “JUST TRY!  You’ll love it!”    The Bun tried.   I applauded and gave him the thumbs up.   Multiple times.   Many many thumbs up.   While holding a flailing and wailing Lola at enough of a distance that she didn’t scratch out my contacts with her tiny claws.

- The Bun tried to do an arabesque and fell.    GAME OVER.

- The Bun spent the rest of the class, eyes folded over his chest, pretending he wasn’t about to cry, and making faces at himself in the mirror.   The Birdy spent the rest of the class screaming The Bun’s name over and over and over again.

- I do not know what to do about his yearning to dance and his loathing of all things pink.   Incompatible!   Does not compute!

- I will take him again this week and hope for the late entrance of at least one other boy.   PLEASE.   AT LEAST ONE OTHER BOY.   You know, NOT wearing a pink frothy tutu.

- I bet he’ll like it this time!

- I know that I’m delusional.

- But those shoes are expensive.

- The fact I even mentioned that means that I’ve become the exact parent that I swore I would never be.   Next thing you know, I’ll be shouting, “Kids are starving in Africa!” when they refuse to eat their dinner.

- Or my favourite:   “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”

- Which is completely ridiculous when you think about it, because in that scenario, the kid is ALREADY CRYING.   Threatening them with more crying is a bit pointless, no?

- The End.

- Oh, I forgot the card in my camera, in case you are wondering why this post is not accompanied by pictures of 15 adorable 4 year old girls in tutus enthusiastically playing at ballet while The Bun in blue shorts and a t-shirt enthusiastically played at sulking miserably with his own reflection.

Filed under: Kids