Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Tuttus and Tears

Four and half years ago I found out I was having a girl through an ultrasound. I admit I started dreaming of ballet classes, princess crowns and pink hairbows. (I did think of soccer and basketball too but not at first). I had dreams of her first recital and seeing her all dressed up in her first ballet costume.

April 6th of 2006 I welcomed my beautiful daughter into this world vie C-section. I remember holding her while I still laid on the OR table and thinking she was perfect. We knew she might have kidney issues but all I saw was a small bundle with sole searching blue eyes. I still clung to my ballet dreams as they finished my surgery and I waited to really get to meet my daughter in recovery.

Soon after those precious moments at her birth, the world tilted and everything got sideways as we began our journey of medical issues with Emma. The dreams of her dancing were soon put on the back shelf in a dark closet and replaced with hospital visits, surgeries, trips to so many specialist my head hurts trying to count how many, and trips to one therapy or another.

Four years later, I finally got to dust those old dreams off and bring them into the light. Today Emma went to her first ballet class!! She put on her "pretty" as she calls her leotard and her little pink socks (can't find ballet slippers in her size) and we headed off to town. She was so excited, we had been reading ballet books all week and talking about it. She was nervous when we first go into the school and climbed the stairs with her walker in tow, but she quickly got over it. Luckily a little girl from our storytime was also in the class and she followed her to go stand on her star and follow what the teacher did. I sat in the back trying so hard to not bawl like a baby in a room full of strangers. I was so proud of my pretty ballerina in her pink tuttu and her shiny silver walker helping her move. My own tiny little ballerina!!!

I will never forget these first 45 minutes of dance class, as I watched my little girl get to be a girl and learn first position and how to raise up on her toes. I will forever hold tucked into my heart watching her follow the teacher as she showed them a dance with a blue scarf and she copied every move she made. I will be able to cling to those precioius memories the next time things get tough and medically scary. She was not able to do everything like her friends due to the limitations of her walker but she did her best and adjusted the skills to her own needs and I was beaming with pride. She did not get all shy and scared she smiled and loved every minute. Her teacher quickly figured out how to manuver her in and out of the walker and I only had to help once which was nice to see her interact with a new person and trust the teacher in the room. She has come so far from only trusting family.

She loved it so much she did not want to take off her outfit and I had to put it back on after her diaper change in the trunk of the car, and she wore it proudly to show her Meme and Pop how we were meeting. She even wore it to Target with Pop before it got wet and had to be taken off. When Daniel got home tonight she told him in her few words about it and showed him her book that told about Ballet and then pointed to herself and said pretty!! Then, after dinner she showed him her ballet moves and stretches from today. It was so sweet! He will hopefully get to go one class and see her be a tiny princess too.

Her class runs for six weeks and we will see from there. We really did this to allow her to work on her muscles and her social skills in a new and fun way. She loves dancing and music at school so we thought it would be a great fit and it seems to been a success so far. No matter what happens at the end of this class I will always remember today and be forever grateful for God allowing us to bring a dream put away out and life it to the fullest. She may never be a prima ballerina but she will always be my tiny ballerina!! So brave and so smart. Her smile today will always been in my heart.

Like I said tears and tuttus!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That is so sweet Rachel. I totally cried thru the whole story... beautiful. So happy for your ballerina.

Anonymous said...

Yay Emma!

Rachel, This is Lauren B...I didn't know you had a blog...I will definitely be following now. You can find mine too :) Thanks for sharing such a beautiful story :)