That's my daughter

So today Sofia started ballet class. Many a mom has pictured her sweet little angel all dressed up in tutu and pink slippers, hair swishing around in a high pony tail. What they usually don't picture is a screaming, full-blown tantrum throwing toddler derobing herself and refusing to enter the studio, repeating "fwim, fwim (swim, swim)". Well that's because that's my daughter. It all went down hill way before we even got in the car to go to class. For some reason she has an aversion to socks and since we were required to put tights on her she was especially peeved that she could not do her usual sit down, look up deviously, pull and remove shtick. So we began our journey already screaming. Lovely. My mom and I just sighed and continued on, wondering silently to ourselves why we adhere to such masochistic behavior. The entire car ride consisted of "No socks, no socks, no socks!" while poor, innocent baby Jonah slept away in the car seat. When we got to class there was no introductions, no "let's look all the things in the room--this is a bar, this is the mirror, these are tap shoes" etc. It was let's jump right in and start doing arabesques, toe taps and piourettes. All that with a group of 2 1/2 year olds. Odd, no one lept up showing the promise of a future Black Swan. The teacher seemed nice and very patient but Sofia wanted NOTHING to do with that class. She was still a bit hung up on her tights but now she had moved on to something more disconcerning to her little brain. The last time she remembered being at the rec center was for swim class like 6 months ago! Who knew the kid had such a great memory. Well she does and it resulted in a continuous cry of "fwim, fwim" (swim, swim). She did not want to do any of the moves and was just so confused and mad because she was not swimming. (Funny, I recall those last few swim sessions---she wanted nothing to do with those either.) I tried to maintain some distance and then she ran out of the class so my mom went in with her. No change. They both came back out and after crying in my arms for a while she let me lead her back in there. She did one arabesque-ish move and then it was time to sit in a circle. Need I say more? Right, mine was the only one running around not listening. As a side note---there were many other times where she was not the only one running around and not listening so it was nice to know these other kids were not super freaky robot 2 yr olds who did everything they were told. Next--tap..oh, no...it didn't matter how cool the tap sounded on the wood floor, Sofia refused to put those on and ran around sliding and falling on the floor. Finally, after several no-pressure offers to put them on she did and I think she realized how cool they really were. The class, being only 30 minutes long was finally over and guess what? Yep, she didn't want to take off the tap shoes and leave. Oy. This post is starting to sound like I'm bragging about how naughty my daughter is. It's not. I'm not proud. I'm befuddled. Well there it is. Oh and I'll end on a funny note---which may only be humorous if you were there today and saw her---there will be a recital in March. A recital. Ha!