Ballet Austin, Meet the Girl Scouts

Girls Scouts offered us an opportunity to attend a ballet workshop at Ballet Austin. The girls were SO excited for it. Of course, that morning, on our way to church, Lily felt so nauseous that we had to turn around and she laid on the living room floor next to a bucket for a couple of hours. Once she slept off whatever ailed her, she was up and at ‘em and ready to go. Even exclaiming, “I’m SO happy I feel better so I can do ballet!” Although, Lily also told me she didn’t need the ballerinas to teach her anything because she already knew everything about ballet. Must be nice to be such a prima donna at age four. They were excited to wear their fancy dresses and fancy glass/plastic slippers that they’d purchased with their own money.

Not only was the ballet exciting for the girls, but it was exciting for me as it was the first time I’d driven downtown by myself, and I pretty much knew the way without the GPS, but was still happy to have it. We waited with throngs of excited little girls for the program to start.

Let’s just say, it wasn’t what we expected. The program was a lot of talking and a little dancing. The dancers weren’t in their costumes, which was disappointing for the girls since they were breaking down the ballet Sleeping Beauty. Then, they would call girls down by age group to learn some movements. This was fun, but chaotic because imagine calling 1/3 of your audience from the seats at a time to go on stage. And of course, the girls don’t want to crawl across strangers’ legs so they drag a mom with them, but then the child who is left behind in the seats is bawling because they don’t want to be alone in their seat, but the child on stage starts freaking out when you try to crawl over seats to return to the child left behind. Not that that happened to me multiple times or anything (or totally did). So basically, I ran between the stage and climbed over seats, between other moms, to whichever child was left behind. Finally, I said “screw it” and both girls enjoyed the session for each age group because I was over the disorganization.

By the end, the girls were ready to be done, about 15 minutes prior to the actual end. But, once all was finished, they perked up when we were leaving and I let them dance on the stage for a few minutes. I think that was the highlight for them. Our troop gave that outing a rating of “meh” but we got a patch, did something new, and I drove solo downtown! But I didn’t get a patch for that.