I over estimated her attention span. The 5 year old, restless as a puppy, hardly complains of being tired and wanting to sleep but yesterday was an exception.
I've been looking around for a dancing school. I found one which has baby ballet and jazz, on the same day.
I thought baby ballet and jazz are 2 entirely different dances and she could cope. I sent her for a trial yesterday from 3.30pm till 5.15pm.. I peeped into the ballet, she dutifully followed the other kids and toed to teacher's instruction.. very cute. Nothing much though, mostly tip toes and dancing around with some hankies... :D
She had a 15 minutes break before jazz. Jazz is entirely different. Hip-hop upbeat music and the footwork is fast. She followed, skipping and jumping dutifully and laughing lots too. After 15 minutes.. she suddenly stopped and didn't want to follow. Instead, she started doing her ballet footwork, like tip toe-ing and bending over while the rest followed the teacher's instructions. . . . Haih !!!
.. and she starts 'swimming' on the floor.. HAIH !!!!!! getting her clothes, hands and legs dirty.
When she didn't respond to encouragement, the teacher asked her to wait at the corner and watch.
I asked her why she suddenly stopped and she came out with silly reasons like the teacher was like a 'man', like 'Ultraman' or 'Superman'.. Very funny.. I remember the teacher did some handworks during the dance.. a little bit of robot like moves and I think Amber found that strange and stopped.
She fell asleep in the car at 5.30pm and slept till almost 8pm.
Later in the evening, she told me she likes jazz better than ballet but the class is too long and she is too tired to follow. That explains the crankiness and ultraman-superman nonsense.
I took her for granted and attending 2 dance class in a day, back to back, is really too much.
.. and to think we wanted her to attend her mental arithmetic on the same day so we could save the hassle of sending her to class and back !
The jazz teacher ... advised us to send her for ballet and get her basics right first. Jazz can come later when she's around 6 or 7.
We try as much to accommodate her interest while juggling our very busy and packed schedule too.
