Sassy's first ballet class!!!!!

Some of you may know that we recently decided to sign Sassy up for a ballet class in lieu of music therapy (see "Waiting Room Blues" ).  Well, we signed her up and her first class was today!  The day after I signed her up I went out and bought her little ballet slippers.  Then I took her to a dance store and let her pick out an outfit (with a "tutu" of course!) and a dance bag.  She was SO excited, and so was I.  My little girl was going to start ballet!  Not any kind of therapy or behavior program, but a ballet class, with neurotypical children!!  I can't even begin to explain how BIG this is for us!

Showing off her new ballet outfit!

 I was able to get a sitter for Peanut so I could focus all of my attention on Sassy in her class.  All the way to the class Sassy and I  talked about how excited she was.  She couldn't wait to get inside and put on her ballet slippers. I dropped her off in the class and sat back and watched, saying a little prayer quietly in my head, asking that she doesn't melt down. (Although she is ready to loose her diagnosis, she still can be rigid at times and will meltdown if she isn't allowed to do what she feels "needs" to be done).  I purposely didn't inform anyone of her diagnosis.  If we want to loose her autism label, then we need to get used to not having it.  The class started well, and Sassy was doing a great job following instructions.

Stretching

warm-up

Time to lean some ballet moves!

What a good little ballerina!

Near the end, she began to loose interest and was the only little one jumping around and playing to keep herself entertained.  She definitely was the energetic one in the class but did fairly well.  When class was over, I expected she would come over to me excited and happy with the class....but she didn't.  What she said was, "I wanna go home and play with my friends now!"

I was shocked, and honestly a little disappointed.  When I asked why she explained she didn't feel it was fair that Peanut and her friends were at her house playing and she wanted to be there to play too. Well, I guess I can't complain about that, she WANTS to play with her friends!  So off we went back home to have a snack and finish playing.  When we got home her friends asked her if she had fun.  At first she hesitated, but eventually said yes, she did have fun.

I told Sassy we could practice some of the ballet positions she learned this week.  She said that she would like that and that she is going to try really hard to listen more to the teacher next class.  I'm glad she wants to go back and try again.  It didn't quite go the way I expected, but I would definitely consider this a success!!!