Dancing School Drop Out

I let HB quit the first activity she's ever been in. I swore I wouldn't. I promised myself that it was a commitment and if there was one thing my mom taught me about commitments, it was that you keep them.

When HB began dance lessons in August I knew there was a chance we would move and I allowed that moving would remove her from dance. We made it through The Nutcracker in December, during which she won over the audience by calling, "Mommy! Mommy!" from the stage.

But since The Nutcracker she has whined every Monday when it was time to go. Last week she refused to enter the building and we ended up fighting in the parking lot until I gave in and took her home.


So yesterday when I told her we were going and she said, "I don't want dance wessons," I gave it careful consideration and then I let her quit. 

Careful Consideration
The purpose for starting dance was to make friends in Easley, where we live. All of our friends are in Greenville, where I work and she goes to daycare. But we're moving. So we don't need Easley friends.

We'll be gone before the recital and they found a new class member to buy her recital costume. So tuition is the only real skin we have in the game and we haven't paid for March.

As a kid I danced for years, though never ballet (not sure why). I played soccer for one season. I played the piano, the cello, and the saxophone, and I was allowed to quit all of them.

In high school I swam, played lacrosse, was on student council, a member of several clubs, and sang in my church choir. Once when I suggested I would give up choir, my mother snapped, "you committed and you'll fulfill that commitment, young lady."

There's some inconsistency there, I grant you. But this isn't a blog to examine my relationship with my mother. Suffice it to say some things required commitment and others would be funded only if I demonstrated real passion.

I emailed the studio and told them we wouldn't be back.

The Lessons
I don't want HB to expect she'll get everything she asks for in the grocery store. So she picks up cookie boxes and then puts them back.

I don't want her to get used to sleeping in our bed. So she can crawl in and snuggle for a few minutes, but then she's instructed to return to her room.

I don't want her to give up on things that are too hard. So we encourage her to keep trying tasks beyond her skill level and help her to complete them if she needs it.

I don't want her to take the orderliness of our home for granted. So she has her own chores she completes.

I don't want her to quit. Not ever. But I just let her. I just said, "okay."

The Example
I'm calling it a sound financial decision ahead of the move. But really I just didn't want her to hate ballet. I want her to love it. So we'll try again at a different studio in the fall, in Columbia.

Lately she's taken to rubbing her leg in the same place I'm usually icing mine and declaring she has injured herself. Going so far as to lay the boo-boo bunny right on the bone.

When I say, "how did you injure it?" she says, "running."

She's never seen me in dance wessons. Then again, she never complains about running. In fact, she usually says she's "weally fast!"