Elin begins ballet (Or, the most adorable blog post ever)

Elin realized her biggest dream today:  ballet class!

 

What Elin was saying all day long before ballet class:

 

"I will be the best ballet-er."

"I will be so good."

"I am the BEST dancer!"

"I will be in every ballet show."

 

There was no need to encourage her or build her up.  Her cup of self-confidence runneth over.

 

 



And her instructor was Carlos Stroia!
He's a legend.
He's from Romania and he is the ballet king.

While we were on our way there, Elin wanted to know what Carlos looks like.

We saw him this spring at the local theater when he did the "Peter and the Wolf" production, but he was on stage and we were in the nosebleed section.  I knew he had hair and that was about it.

 

So I said, "He has dark hair."

Elin said, "What else does he look like?"

Me, inventing wildly:  "And . . . he smiles a lot!"  I was pretty sure that was true.

Elin:  "I think Carlos smiles everywhere!"  She already loved him.

 

Elin decided she wants to give Carlos a Christmas present. This was in the car on the way there; remember, she hadn't actually met him yet.

The one-hour-long class was one of the cutest things I have ever witnessed.
Some parents dropped their kids off - and left.  Another one sat down and read a book.
Confession: I kind of judged them.  How can they not watch this?!

Elin does not have her full ballet apparel yet because Carlos wanted to make sure she liked ballet before we bought more ballet stuff.

There's really no need to wait but I'm just going to do what Carlos says.  He's the boss.

So in the middle of all of this, Svea tells me she wants to do ballet too.
She spent quite a bit of time demonstrating to me in the little waiting/viewing area how incredibly good she was at ballet.

If her resolve lasts . . . we might have to invest in another tutu.

 Then it was time for the splits.

Carlos lowered the girls down one at a time, and I could her him asking each one, "Does it hurt?"
When the girl would say yes (because everyone said yes; how would this not hurt?!), he would say, "I won't push down any more.  Now you count to ten."
Elin counted to ten in record time.

Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten.

She did a great job!  Didn't quite make it to the splits yet, but now I know she can count to ten in no time flat.

When the class was over, Elin was so proud.  She loved it.  I asked her what her favorite part was, and she said, "Everything!"  I agree - my favorite part was everything too (:  Can't wait to do this again next week!