Dancing Queen

I was never much of a dancer, but I did take lessons for about a year. In our small town, we didn’t have anyone really qualified to teach ballet until a new family moved in. I can’t remember the name of the dance teacher, but I remember she had a son a year older than me named Chip. To my 8-year-old eyes, he was the hottest guy I had ever met! I begged and begged my parents to let me sign up for dance. Give me a break, I had no concept of money…I was 8 and I wanted to hang around Chip as much as possible. 
 
I had heard that he helped his mom with the lessons and was a dancer himself. After weeks of being obnoxious (I was really good at that), my mom finally said I could go to dance lessons. I think she arranged some kind of trade because both my sister and I were allowed to go and I specifically remember her sewing dance costumes. It was fun for a while and I did even get to see Chip around a few times, but in my heart I was not really a dancer. I would rather play softball, so after the recital my sister and I quit and that was the end of my dance career. 

Dance isn’t like that at our house now! At one time or another, every one of my kids over the age of two has been a dancer. That’s right, girls and boys! Bossy and the Gym Rat started dance when they attended a Montessori school. She was four and he was two and they were so excited to try the class offered at the school. It was called Dancercize and it was a little silly but they loved it. They had all different kinds of dance taught by the same teacher for about an hour. Then after a few months they had a little performance that consisted of about 8 kids and their parents. After we recovered from that experience we had a few years go by without dance. 

Then when the Drama Queen was about four, Bossy decided that they all wanted to be cloggers so she coerced the other two into begging for lessons (she is so much like me it’s scary!). We scraped together the money and signed up all three of them for clogging classes. That lasted about a year before they were tired of it and I was tired of driving across town. Not long after that we started building our house and preparing to move. When we finally got all settled in our new neighborhood we started looking for a dance studio that was close by. 

Angela Curtis

 We happened on a little place called C & C Ballet Academy. The director, Angela Curtis, is the best dance teacher I have ever met. She is passionate about dance and she is willing to do whatever is necessary to help her students feel like dancers. Bossy danced that first year and so did the Drama Queen and Teach. When my sweetie lost his job, Angela let me babysit her kids to pay for lessons so my girls could keep dancing. After a couple of years of that, her kids were too old for sitters so we figured out another way we could keep working together. Most of my girls only danced for a few years, but this latest crop believes they really ARE dancers! 


Princess has had her pointe shoes for a couple of years and she is in the highest level of dance at C&C. The Prima Donna has been on pointe since Christmas. Someday I’ll tell you her pointe shoe story. Crafty will get her pointe shoes this fall after she turns 11. Sport is in the boys class, remember his stellar performance in Swan Lake? And this morning I watched my cute little Scout practice her recital piece with her group. Besides the fact that Angela works with us so we can afford to have all the kids dance, my favorite part about her studio is the modest costumes and that she doesn’t do performances that make my little girls look like they belong on the Las Vegas strip! 

You can also find C & C on facebook.

We have attended several competitions with them (those are such a racket, by the way!) and some of those girls, even tiny girls can really shake their boodies! And we won’t even discuss those dance moms that are constantly hitting on my sweetie even when I’m standing there!!! OK…breathe deeply…calm down…smile gently at your efforts…take time to reflect upon your weight loss goals…Downward Facing Dog…oh wait, that’s a yoga position and that means dance…even at 46 dancing still isn’t in my heart. And it’s not in my feet either.