This weekend is Rosie Girl’s last weekend of dance recitals as a high schooler. Hard to believe. PWM and I have learned a lot over the last thirteen years!
When we signed her up for her very first pre-ballet/tap combo class, there were a lot of things that no one told us.
No one told us that this could be the beginning of driving to Stevens Point once or twice a week for 13 years.
No one told us that this could drain our pocketbooks if she “took” to dance (which she did).
No one told us about the long afternoons in the studio making sure all the kids in the carpool ate their dinners and made it to the right classes.
No one told us about itchy costumes (although we did discover that having the girls wear a flesh-colored leotard underneath would help the itchies).
No one told us we should learn how to do stage make-up or do up hair in a bun (my nemesis).
No one told us about the chaos that is dress rehearsal week.
No one told us that our child would out grow their dance shoes 6 weeks before recital. And then out grow that pair of shoes 6 weeks into the next semester of dance.
No one told us how complicated dance shoes would get. Rosie Girl’s last pair of tap shoes that she ordered had to be split sole jazz tap shoes with tunable taps. And that’s just for tap! I can’t even think about pointe shoes or hip-hop or jazz shoes, too!
But, also,
No one told us how we would believe that our child was the best and most adorable dancer the first couple of years even if she was the one who sat on stage and didn’t dance.
No one told us how proud we could be to see our little dancer on stage concentrating so hard on the movements that she didn’t even have a nerve cell to spare on smiling!
No one told us that a piece of our hearts was up there with her.
No one told us how all these years of dance have translated into such poise and grace whenever she’s on stage or talking to strangers.
No one told us how attached we’d get to all the wonderful teachers we’d get to know over the thirteen years.
No one told us how every year, we’d be proud to see how much Rosie Girl had grown, but miss a little bit the little girl she was last year.
No one told us how hard the last recital would be. How hard it would be to see the last dances and know that this is the last year.
No one could have known when she was four that she’d still be dancing at seventeen. But, she is. And, she’s beautiful.
What an experience the last thirteen years have been! And none of us would change it for anything!
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