Tiny dancer...

Being a sister of 3 brothers, S-girl can often be found acting, umm, should we say, more like a little boy then the lovely little girl that she is. I'll never forget the night that D-man and I had shipped the boys off to aunt Jenny's. We decided to take S-girl to the mall and just spend some quality time with her. Of course, she wanted to play in the bacteria infested kiddie park at the mall. So there we were, sitting and watching our little rose petal play, when I saw a number of people smiling and watching her and realized she was commanding quite an audience. Of course, D-man and I hadn't really been paying much attention as we were in somewhat of a vegetative state at the end of a long day. I watched my little girl climb up onto the slide and literally take a flying leap off of it. She proceeded to land with a drop/roll which was filled with all sorts of sound effects, as if she had been shot. She then stood up and started karate chopping an invisible foe. All the time yelling, "Take THAT...and THAT!".

I laughed.

Then I thought....get this girl some ballet lessons!

That was a year ago. About 6 months ago I did a little online library search and ordered up as many ballet books as I could find. Nothing like a little "strategic" parenting.

That night, I proudly presented Tanya and the Red Shoes. I snuggled into bed with S-girl and read. She listened so attentively. As we finished she looked at me with a huge smile. I then decided to take it one step further and went and got my laptop. I googled "Chinese ballet" on You tube. We waited for what seemed like a bajillion minutes for the video to load. And then it began. My little "tom boy" watched in awe. When it was over, S-girl looked at me and said, "can we keep that book? I loved it!"

We read it every night until it was due.

Well, the time has come and I want to introduce...

The tiny dancer...



Pretty ballerina dance for me...


You always seem to be carefree...

You twirl around upon your toes...

You do it all so effortlessly.


poem by CheeChee Martin