Little Dancers

Well, its spring recital time again.  A time of tri-weekly rehearsals, costume fittings, replinishing hairspray and bobby pin supplies and trying to talk little girls into sqeezing their feet into too-tight tap shoes for just a couple more weeks.

Alice and Clara started tap this year.  It's ballet only for the first couple of years after little girls start to dance.  Until the teachers feel like the girls have developed enough coordination to tap dance without sounding like a cacophany.  So this year they are Combo 1 dancers.  An hour of combined ballet and tap once a week from September through April.  And then in May things really intensify.  They rehearse twice during the school week and on weekends with the whole company.  The girls just love the weekend practices because they get to watch the big girls dance.  And those girls really are spectacular.

It's a bit sad for me this year because Alice has decided that this will be her last season of dance.  She really wants to focus on soccer, basketball and swimming.  And she feels, and we wholeheartedly agree, that she would be overextending herself if she tried to do it all.  I really think that my children need some days to simply play after school.  To be scheduled to do absolutely nothing. 

And although Alice likes to dance, she loves to play competitive sports.  So she made a choice.  She is wavering a bit now that we are in dance fervor and the recital excitement is building, and if she does want to dance in the fall, I certainly wouldn't object.  But I feel, in the end, that competitive sports will win out for Alice.

But I will so miss seeing her in her costumes!  I will miss getting that lump in my throat when the hair and makeup are all done and we slip her dresses on.  I have always really wanted dancing twin daughters.  And I got them, if just for a little while.  But now Alice is making her own decisions and for that I am so proud!

But I will always treasure the pictures of my youngest in her dance finery!  Last week, I took this picture of her from across the room during the girls' session with Kevin Hurley, a local photographer who has photographed our family for 6 years now:

And then I got on my new favorite photo editing website called Picnik and edited it up.  I'm so proud of my results!  A big crop, a splash of vibrance, some softening with a central focus.  And then a click of "vingnette."  Voila!

Sweet Alice

My consolation for Alice ending her illustrious dance career is two-fold.  First, Clara has no plans to stop dancing.  Ever.  She is a dancer and she's proud of it.  She has no interest in wearing unflattering sports uniforms, sweating (we call the perspiration from dance her "glow") or grunting with any sort of effort. 

And dance really does suit her.  She's got rhythm, loves music and had the natural physique of a dancer.

Sweet Clara

And secondly, I have pride in that my daughters are choosing their own paths.  That they, despite being twins, feel enough self-identitiy and self-confidence to forge their individual paths. 

They still start each day in each others arms.  (Really.  It is just too cute.)  And they end each day the same way.  And they still come together during the day when they are able.  (Alice's teacher just told us that Clara was sent to him with a message.  She delivered it and on the way out of the Alice's classroom she paused and looked at Alice.  Alice ran to her and they hugged for a few seconds and then both went about their day.) 

But they are, indeed, finding their own ways.  Using their own preferences and desires and logic and decision-making.  Yay for my girls!!