Hi! My name is Jen, and I’m a new contributor to the Cincinnati Moms’ Blog. I’m a wife, a mom of two, a publishing professional, a runner, and . . . a dance mom. I never really expected to be a “dance mom.” I also haven’t expected to be a “soccer mom” or a “football mom” or a “cheer mom” or a “band mom.” I hadn’t really spent much time anticipating what activities my kids would get involved with, perhaps mostly because I figured those choices would be their own, and I’d learn the ropes as needed when the time came. I also didn’t expect the time to come until the kids were, oh, I dunno, at least school-age.
But while my daughter is now in first grade, she’s a seasoned dance veteran at the ripe old age of 6.5, having been in her combined ballet/tap class for three years. I did not intend to send a 3 year-old to dance class! I had no particular dance agenda. I was planning on pretty much coasting through the years between “sleep deprived mom of infant/s” and “gas-guzzling chauffeur of school-aged activity hounds” with some play dates, a few daycare snacks here and there, and otherwise just chilling with my kids, enjoying fun toddler and preschool activities without rigid structure or specific requirements. But that is not the plan my progeny had for me.
E was a later potty-trainer. Maybe, when we first tried as she was about 20 months old, she just wasn’t ready. I was newly pregnant with her little brother, and I thought, I’ll get a head start on this potty thing! E will be completely diaper-free by the time her sibling arrives. Um. Yeah. Not so much. She wasn’t having it. Until approximately 3 weeks after J was born, when I was rooted to the couch for a steady regimen of newborn breastfeeding. THAT’S when she thought it would be good fun to learn to use the potty. I couldn’t make it happen. I was defeated. I put it on the back-burner.
By summer of 2011, baby brother was weaning and E was well over 3 years old; people were going to start looking askance at this child in diapers. It was time to get serious about the potty. But I’d missed the window and once again, E was having none of it. REALLY having none of it. She was never one to hit much as a toddler but potty training actually inflamed her to violence. And Cheerios, M&Ms, Skittles, (yes, you’re sensing an escalation to the bribery there) were offered for any effort to no avail. I had to find something to motivate HER, my little girl specifically. And she wanted desperately to go to a ballet class. One of the older girls in her daycare was in dance. One day a week this older girl would arrive dressed in tantalizing tutus and pastel tights and E wanted THIS ONE THING in the way that only 3 year-olds can want things, which is with an intensity and laser-focus that could flatten a Drill Sargent. So I took the opportunity to point out the obvious – that ballerinas don’t wear diapers – and I hit a nerve. I promised that if E would learn to use the potty, I would enroll her in dance that fall.
She was as good as her word, so of course I had to be good for mine. I enrolled her in an introductory ballet/tap/movement class. I wasn’t looking for the most rigorous or prestigious studio – mostly made the decision by geographic proximity to our house – but as it turns out our studio does their annual recital at the Taft Theater downtown and it is a BIG DEAL complete with a dress rehearsal early in the morning. E loves everything about it – the weekly class, the “special” days (like pajamas, etc.), the costumes, rehearsal, and recital. Every year I ask her if she wants to do dance again; this past summer she wavered briefly over switching to gymnastics, but then settled adamantly back on dance.
I think of a spring morning maybe 2 years ago now. Scott had found a little frog outside in an empty garbage can. E wanted to hold it. And then wanted me to hold it. Which would not make my top 10 list for Things I Want to Roll Out of Bed and Do any day of any week of any year, ever. But I did it, without even a flinch or an “ewww” because I’m proud of her curiosity and determined not to dissuade it. Being a dance mom is kind of like that. It’s something E chose for herself rather than something I planned on or necessarily dreamed for her. But being along for the ride of her interests has pushed my boundaries, too.
