Danielle's New Adventure

Danielle started a ballet & gymnastics class today. She's never done anything like this by herself before. She's always always in Tyler's shadow! Well today it was her turn to shine. She did pretty good, too! She was a little nervous and looked back at me a lot more than the other girls did, but she stayed out there and did everything her teacher asked. (My pictures turned out terrible because I was trying not to disturb the class by using the flash and had to take pictures through the glass at times.)

For the first 20 minutes after warming up, they work on actual ballet movements. I was a little concerned the class might just be some pretty music that the girls ran around to. It wasn't, though. The teacher worked with them on some beginning movements. As Tyler put it, "That doesn't really look like dancing", but they're just getting started. I didn't realize she needed actual ballet shoes, so someone loaned her a pair of slippers. Danielle is the youngest in the class, but she was also the only one who knew which foot was her right foot! Here are a couple pictures from ballet:

For the second half of the class, they shed their shoes and head to the mats for gymnastics. Today they jumped on the springboard, hung on the overhead bars, walked on the balance beam, and bunny hopped across the long trampoline. She really seemed to enjoy herself! I was so proud of her. When they started on the gymnastics portion, Tyler looked at me and said, "She's really going to hurt herself here." He had a hard time watching her do everything. I don't think it was because he wanted to be doing it instead. I think it was because he wanted to do it with her. Here is a picture from gymnastics:

After class was over, her teacher walked out and told me that Danielle had done a really good job. As she said that I realized that I never once worried that Danielle was running wildly across the gym or making loud noises while the instructor was talking. I didn't feel anxious the entire time we were there. Tyler starts taekwondo tomorrow, and I'm already anxious. It's amazing how different two kids can be. Danielle really enjoyed herself and talked about her class the rest of the day. She practiced twirling on her toes with her arms over her head and talked about getting some ballet shoes. It was all I could do to get her out of her leotard! I can't wait until next week's class.

As far as picking taekwondo for Tyler, I was hoping someone else would have better luck at disciplining this kid than I'm having. (Just kidding...kind of.) :)