Wrong Kid and Crack

Since it's Wednesday that means for an hour in the evening we, as a family, go to dance class for the eldest munchkin. Half of the hour is spent doing tap dance, and half is spent doing ballet... or baan-dough as my daughter says.

The tap shoes have been a real issue. This ~dance studio~ is hyper sensative about dress codes and rules and yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah. From my perspective, we're talking about two year olds here... so I feel they can take their strict, knotted panty routines and throw them out the window.

But anyways, the tap shoes... Week before last we noticed that the tap shoes my daughter had really overly emphasized her walking inward on her ankles. It looks a bit like what someone who doesn't know how to ice skate looks like when they are first out on the ice and their skates are tied loosely. Naturally this concerned us and we returned the shoes. The other style that the store offered, doesn't come in a size small enough for my little one. I called several other places to try on shoes, and no one carries them small enough. Unless it's the one kind we already tried and like I said, we know those don't work.

The inward walking on her ankles is normal for her age, I'll spare you the long explanation... talked with an Orthopedist about it. He recommended that unless I could find tap shoes that didn't emphasize the inward walking and that were also comfortable enough for her to wear around... that I should leave her in her ballet shoes for the duration of the hour. Besides, what harm could be done with wearing ballet shoes instead of tap shoes? Wouldn't that actually be a blessing? One less toddler stomping around loudly.

So last week came and went with nothing said about the hour long ballet shoe wearing.

This week I was met with, "What??? No tap shoes yet???" by the dance instructor.

"Well, no. And she'll be wearing ballet shoes for the whole time. (insert Orthopedist explanation) And I tried finding more options for her to try on, but no one carries them in her size."

The woman and I really don't get along for some reason. I'm not sure why. I get along easily with most people.

"Well, what about the recital? She has to have tap shoes for that..."

"She's not in the recital."

"Oh. Ok. Well, it's just for thirty minutes...more like twenty minutes... she'd only be wearing the tap shoes for that long."

I don't know about you, but I think I'd listen to an MD over a dance instructor when it comes to the bone structure and developmental health of my child.

"Next year when she's older, and the shoes fit her better, I'm sure this won't be an issue."

"You need to keep in mind that with her wearing ballet shoes she won't be learning the steps properly for tap."

"She's two..." I say, "I think she'll be okay..."

"You can just stuff tissue in the toe of the shoe..."

"Uh, length isn't the problem here. It's the caved in ankles... the inward walking... you know, her walking on her ankles..."

"You MIGHT want to just think about it..." and she gave me that grimmace and bitchy laughter to point out how aghast she was at what she took as ridiculous behavior on my part.

"It is something to think about, but like YOU pointed out... it is only twenty minutes... I do think she'll be fine in ballet shoes."

And dance class began.

The kids were just off key today. It's strange how that happens. Some days everyone is just fine as fine can be and then other days, there's at least a couple that cry nonstop and that snowballs several others into crying... My daughter finally joined in with twenty minutes left to go.. the ballet portion mind you... the portion of class where she was actually wearing the PROPER shoes.

I don't have the energy to type out how obnoxiously the instructor handled one situation with a crying child... just that I think she made things worse.

With about twelve minutes left of class, my daughter was crying for ~Daddy~ and for her little sister and absolutely refused to stay inside the dance class room. So we left...

I picked her up and with my frazzled brain, actually sat her in the baby carrier and started to try strapping her in.

My husband responds with laughter, "What ARE you doing??"

Pulling my senses back to coherency, "Oh right! Wrong Kid!"

As I'm switching children, the man sitting next to us finally couldn't contain his laughter any longer and let it go free...

I'm a walking comedy show, I swear.

And then my husband goes on to tell me how watching my butt in the mirrors of the dance class was a really nice change up from the bouncing, big, black spandex butt of the instructor...

..and how all the guys straightened up every time I bent over because my low rise pants showed promise of delivering a little peek of my crack...

He's so fully of it! Honestly...

And then he goes on to say, "Oh yeah, I even saw a woman straighten up thinking she was going to get to see some crack..."

At this point I had to laugh and I know he was just trying to bring a stressful hour back down to pure humor. But still, I'd rather talking about the big spandex butt of the instructor instead of the hopes and dreams of a crack peek from the dance crowd.

My husband agreed that dinner out sounded like a better way to spend the last minutes of dance class...

"Yeah, let's go spend money on something I actually ENJOY!" he said.

And with that, we ordered two beers upon arrival and watched our little ballerina dance freestyle from within the confines of her highchair... and without her tap shoes even.