Sleeping Beauty

One would think that after five performances in three days and 30 dances, Sophie would be a bit tired of dancing. Well, she's not - nor is Lucy who did four performances with one beautiful dance in each. Nor am I - who sat through countless hours of practice and performances last week. But there's something much different about sitting in a comfortable chair in our own living room, with coffee in hand, watching the girls dance than watching from a theater audience.

As my friend Michelle best put it, I'm feeling a bit nostaligic about the whole ballet thing. Our girls have usually been some of the youngest - I remember watching Sophie and Lucy at some of their first ballet practices and telling another mom, as we laughed until tears came to our eyes, that watching preschoolers do ballet was the best kind of therapy available.

It's still therapy for me, watching them dance, but another kind. The therapy that involves coming to terms with myself as a parent and learning to let go. Even as Sophie has joined the Apprentice Company I have struggled with it - the girls are all older, most of them have cell phones, , they wear short shorts to practice, they talk about boys. I don't want her to grow up too fast. At the same time she's made good choices - she and McKenzie (the girl closest to her age who knows the ropes as she was in Apprentice last year) have become good friends. And when I see her in practice - her look of determination and the way she has challenged herself to do better and better each week, the way she moves and how different it is from even six months ago - I am so very proud of her.

In the meantime we still have a year or two before Lucy moves up to the Apprentice level and the older girls. And then she will hopefully have a peer group that moves up with her and it won't seem so scary for me. And I'll have learned that it is ok, that it's wonderful, to have the girls grow up and become independent.

By the way, the ballet was beautiful - the North Dakota Ballet Company did yet another outstanding job with bringing classical ballet to our small town. Thank you, thank you, thank you.