Abby goes to ballet camp!

This year was Abby's first time to get to go to camp. Santa Barbara Parks and Rec had a princess ballet camp that I sent her to.

Do you think she enjoyed herself? She did for the first two days. After that it was only because she was dancing on a stage on Friday that she went to "practice camp" on Wednesday and Thursday. Maybe it was because the camp is during the time that we normally have downtime and reading time. Maybe it was because she never wanted to eat lunch before her camp. She just wanted to take a bunch of snacks and eat them there. And maybe it was because she had her grandmother here and wanted to spend more time with her than at camp. But regardless, she ended up being so happy with camp after camp. It was just the getting to camp that was a problem sometimes.

  

For her this was a big deal. She went to camp with other kids. She had to interact with other kids. She had to wear her leotards. She had to have her hair up. She had to follow the rules and deal with all the noises inherent when you have 8 little girls dancing to various princess songs. She had to deal with the teacher telling stories she might not have liked (they learned and listened to a different classical ballet each day).

Abby also had to deal with her anxiety. I sent her with her chew necklaces (those teething necklaces), that are her go to thing to chew on when she gets nervous. She didn't use them. According to her teacher, when she got overwhelmed, she just went to the side of the room and danced by herself. That's a good coping mechanism. I'm good with her learning that. It was a really big deal for her to go to camp for 5 days in a row. And get on stage and do all the dances. She did amazing.

Maybe the best part of the production was the Popsicle afterwards. After every dance they asked their teacher if it was time for frozen treats yet. It was pretty cute. As were the pauses in the productions so the kids could drink water. Or put on lipstick that they ran to their moms to get. Or watching them all peek from behind the curtain to wave at us before the production. 

Best of all was watching Abby and her love for dance shine through. 

She doesn't know it yet, but she's got a ballet video coming for home - two actually - so she can dance at home while we wait for her ballet class to start in September.