Hadley’s 1st Ballet Class

I’m posting these photos chronologically so you can see the succession through the half hour class.  Let me set the stage a bit: Arden has a 45 minute class from 4:30 until 5:15 and then Hadley’s class begins a half hour after that at 5:45.  The studio hallways are crowded with dancers, parents, teachers, staff and all the accompanying gear.

Hadley’s class begins with a little barre time, though not in the traditional sense…

Checking out the cute dancer girl in the mirror.  I had to put her hair in the classic ballerina bun even though it makes it look like she has very little hair which is not the case.

And then this is the reaction we got when the teachers tried to get her to join for a group picture before class began.  Normally I wouldn’t post the other kids faces in the background, but the focal point is not on them and the looks on their faces are priceless.  “What’s her deal?”

A little better when they started the music.

And back to this.

Marching in a circle holding hands…  getting better.  Plus I gave her pacifier back to her as a little security blanket.

A few more bouts of crying with a lot of hand holding in between.  She latched onto this little girl and would not let go for well past when the hand holding portion of class was over.

And the sucker at the end of class – her big reward.  I should point out what a horrible Mom I am that I wouldn’t let her have one along with Arden’s class even though they surely would have given her one.  I didn’t want her to be all sticky and covered with sucker juice for the pictures of her first class.  Might just have backfired on me since that’s all she wanted – even as her class was beginning and they were giving them to the previous class.

I guess I deserved some of these shots…