Monday, October 5, 2009

Spirit the Horse has nothing on Kaia

So what is a mom to do?  I enrolled my 2 1/2 year old daughter in dance class.  She loves to dance and performs regularly around the house.  When we first moved her into her big girl bed, she would trapse into our room at 5:15am and declare, "Mommy, I want to dance."  Clearly a girl who just loves to get down.

But now that we are enrolled, dance is the furthest thing from her mind.  Oh she does a little here and there, but for an hour long class we are talking maybe 15 minutes.

The rest of her time is spent tooling around, invading other girls on their "mark", going to the mirror and making funny faces with her hands, running back to mommy to whisper God knows what, etc.

This morning, things almost took an ugly turn when long plastic drum sticks were given out to the girls.  They were to be used for drumming and rubbing together and such.  My daughter decided to caress the cheek of another child with her stick.  Then the bottom of the other girl next to her.  All I could imagine was her winding up for a good whack!!!  I finally stepped in and moved her away from the other dance students.  Phew!  Crisis adverted.


Now while I know that this is hardly atypical behavior for a 2 year old, I am just not sure how to address it.

Options:
1.  Let the teacher take care of it.  I mean it is why I enrolled her in a formal class anyways.
2.  Take her outside the classroom to scold her, demand that she listen to her teacher and then return.
3.  Sit next to her "mark" so that mommy can always be near to coach her and help her.

In the course of one dance class, I almost do all three options.

While I want my daughter to have a free spirit, I am troubled at how much she just DOES NOT listen.  To anyone really...not just me.

So, we have taken to practicing our dance class at home in hopes of improvement.  I have started taking her to the park in the morning before dance class just so she is a little tired and less...well...free!

So far nothing has really made an impact.  She just flutters about when she wants, talks out of turn, and generally does her own thing.

Thank God there is only 4 more sessions left.  I am looking into karate for toddlers as we speak.  Please tell me they offer it!

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