All that comes with it

Today was Amy’s baby ballet concert. This basically translates into sitting in a theatre watching thirty preschoolers run around randomly, occasionally make a half hearted token effort to follow what the dance teacher is doing. I had been really looking forward to it, but it fell dramatically short of my expectations.

The show was split between four different classes, each one getting about 15 minutes of stage time. To start the concert off all four of the groups came on at the same time and were encouraged to wave at the audience. Amy looked confused and scared, as did most of the other kids. Each one was searching the audience for their parents, and when the music stopped there was a chorus of bewildered sobbing from the wings, like the cries of the wounded in no-mans-land after the guns had stopped.

Things got better after that, but I’m pretty convinced that Amy didn’t enjoy herself all that much. Of course I could be wrong; Kerry, her mum, and my own mother say they think she had a good time. And when I asked Amy herself she told me she had a nice time, although she didn’t say it with much conviction.

For me a big part of the problem was that instead of dancing just for fun, Amy was dancing for an audience. It’s a bit like the difference between a homemade rag doll and a plastic Barbie; a lot of the innocence had been extracted. The children were being asked to dance for our entertainment rather than their own. Of course I could be analyzing the whole thing a little too much, Kerry certainly would say I was. But still, it put me off.

I’ve become a little tired of the whole ballet thing anyway, I think I’d much rather her do gymnastics or music of some sort. Something a little less, I don’t know, girly.

I did manage to get some enjoyment out of the evening however. On the way home Amy became more and more insistent that she needed to pee and she needed it now. We pulled over to the side of the road and I attempted to free her from her cardigan, leotard, tights and knickers, squat her down to have a wee, and then pull all her clothes back on in the right order. To even further complicate the procedure I tried to do it as quickly as possible as it was cold, dark, and damp outside.

The first two stages went smoothly enough, I striped her down and dangled her in my patented two handed swing hold - 99% guaranteed not to get urine on either your child’s or your own shoes. The redressing was slightly more problematic and I forgot the whole tights part of the equation. I was then treated to the sight of Amy waddling around the pavement in fits of laughter, the legs of her tights round her ankles and the crotch hooked up inside her leotard. Better than a bunch of girls in tutus pretending to be fairies any day.