It surprises everyone when I talk about how much Leighton does NOT like getting dolled up. Everyone just assumes since I dress her in big bows & dresses that she must be a total girly girl. In a lot of ways she is girly...she loves having her nails painted and playing with baby dolls! But, in most ways she is more of a tomboy...loves playing soccer, loves spiderman and batman and ninja turtles, ET (lol) and LOVES wearing tshirts and shorts. She rarely argues with me about clothes but she will immediately change into a tshirt (the softer the better) and soccer shorts the second she gets home from whatever activity I dress her for (school, church, dance, shopping, etc.).
The morning of dance pictures I realized just how much she truly loathed getting dolled up. I had to curl her hair and put on makeup for the pictures and she was just totally mortified. There were tears (maybe on both of our parts haha) and she kept looking in the mirror and saying "HOW RIDICULOUS" she looked. She did not look ridiculous, she was truly adorable but she was NOT happy and swore that morning that she was quitting dance after the performance haha.
She smiled beautifully for her pictures but in between each take she had a true scowl on her face haha. Maybe we should introduce her to acting.
After the picture drama, I was a little nervous about how the actual recital day would go down. There was more makeup and curls (sponge rollers this time since she hated the hot rollers haha) and then there was the whole dancing on stage thing. BUT much to mine and Toby's surprise she was totally laid back the day of the show. She gladly let me fix her hair, paint her nails and put on makeup. She was excited about dancing on stage and having her friends and family watch and she looked pretty dang adorable, again :)
She loved watching all the dances before hers and when it was time for her class to dance she gladly ran backstage with her friends and did her dance. It was SO cute.
After she danced she came back to the audience with us and watched the rest of the show. She loved watching the dances and then after the show was over she went back up on stage to get a trophy with the rest of her class. She really loved the trophy. She has medals from soccer but this was her first trophy and she was SO proud. She wanted a picture with her dance teacher Miss Lindy and wanted a picture backstage with her trophy. Again it was so adorable!
Since she had told us this was her first AND last dance recital I tried to document it well ;) She took lots of pictures with all of her fans that came out to see her "One and Done" show. My sisters, niece and nephew, grandmother and parents all came to watch the recital. She was SO happy to have the people she loves in the audience.
I was so proud of my little tomboy for dancing and enjoying her moment. All year long she had said she wanted to dance until the performance and then no more dance! Through most of the season this had been her story and she seemed to be sticking to it! Gracen kept telling us that she was going to dance next year but "May May" wasn't (that's what she calls Lei???). Recital day was a fun day and I'm glad we got to watch her on stage even just one time hehe :)
SO imagine my TOTAL surprise when she came to me last week (out of the blue) and said she wants to dance again next year. She did ask if she could still play soccer and when I said yes she said, "ok, good, well I want to dance again and do another performance." What?!! Sooo our one and done may turn into a repeat dancer. Only time will tell for our tiny dancer...
Love that sweet dancer! She looked so pretty!
ReplyDelete