Amelia the Ballerina

A few weeks ago I enrolled Mia into her very first ballet class. Despite the fact that it was through community ed and there were pretty much no expectations besides that she would show up and probably stand in the middle of the dance studio at the local high school staring into space, perhaps picking her nose, we were both very excited. We made a day of going to Shopko (or maybe Kmart, it had to be one of them because those are the only stores in Spanish Fork) and bought her cute little pink tights and the whole ballet she-bang. I even bought the sparkly pink legwarmers, just because I knew I would never get away with wearing them, so I had to live vicariously through my daughter. Want to see the adorable picture? Ok


Tee hee....

Ok, so here was the surprise, from the very first class Mia had a laser like focus reminiscent of one of those freaky good Chinese ping pong champion players. She was going to learn everything that poor overworked teacher was going to throw at her and then do some kind of Vulcan mind meld and learn some more. It's kind of adorable, that she takes it all so seriously when all the other girls in her class are just happy to stare at themselves in the mirror as they slide on their leotarded booties across the wooden floor, or stare at their parents sitting along the wall and wave at random intervals, just to make sure they are still conscious. I'm expecting Mia to correct her teacher's posture any time now.

And it isn't just in my "my-child-is-a-prodigy" mother blinded imagination either. Her teacher actually stopped me after class and asked if Mia was really only three ,firstly because she is as tall as most adults by now, but also because of her amazing concentration and coordination (which must be a result of a genetic mutation because I once tripped over a leaf and dislocated my shoulder). Of course, she just meant that Mia has yet to run head first into the mirror like some of the other girls and in my logical mind I knew this was just a mild observation. But in my latent stage mother mind I started planning her career, starting with her playing Clara opposite Mikhail Barishnikov (I know he is really like 60 years old and retired,but he is the only ballerina boy I know.) Yep, it turns out I'm one of THOSE mothers. I will try really hard to suppress this, but my sudden certainty that Amelia (that is her name in ballet because Mia says it sounds more like a ballerina name, whatever) is a brilliant talent just waiting to be formed kind of came as a surprise. I'm going to have to check out Brittany Spears' mom's book out at the library and read it for pointers.