Fay has been taking ballet classes since last July. She started with a little summer session after which she was still enthusiastic about continuing, so we went for the long haul of a year. About mid January she was so done. But we had committed to the year, and I really thought Fay would enjoy the recital experience, so we pressed on. I’m really glad we did. She still doesn’t want to do dance anymore, but I think she at least has a good taste in her mouth about it because of performing. She had a lot of fun dressing up, doing make-up and having people cheer for all her hard work of learning her routine.

She really did work hard, and I was so impressed by how well she learned all her steps. It is just so amazing to me how grown up she is getting. Another thing I have loved about the recital experience is how much one-on-one time I have gotten with Fay. I, regrettably, am much quicker to snap at Fay when I have all three kids. And it has been so good to spend time with just her where I’m not relying on her to be another adult helper for me–she’s only five after all!

Anyway, enough of talking. Here are Fay’s dance pictures!

As you can probably tell, her routine was Peter Pan and all the girls were little Wendys! Fay was, naturally, the cutest, most excellent Wendy of all! After watching all the preschool routines I was even more impressed by how well the kids in Fay’s class worked together and learned the choreography–which I thought was extra fun for the age group as well.

The recital was attended by parents and grandparents, and everybody doted appropriately on Fay for her wonderful performance! And then, just like that, it was all over. I think Fay and I will both miss seeing dance friends every week. Though I don’t think Carter or Portia are going to miss doing nothing but wander around the studio for an hour every Tuesday morning.

 

Another tender experience happened with Fay this past week. I had cleaned the whole house minus the kitchen on Wednesday, and Fay mentioned on Thursday that the kitchen was messy. I jokingly said that maybe she should come and help me do dishes instead of drawing with chalk on the driveway, to which she replied, “Sure! I’d love that!” Then we went in and did the dishes together. Her job was rinsing, and though after she realized she was supposed to get all the gunk off the dirty dishes, not just dump water in the clean dishes she lost a lot of enthusiasm, it was still more fun for me to have a sweetheart helper than do them myself.

Also, here is Portia as a mermaid.

Also, we need a picture of Carter and this is a funny one!