Beginning of this thing called dance...

It finally arrived...Kenna's first day of dance class!!!  She was so excited and as we saw earlier in the blog, she had the perfect and most adorable attire for her big debut.  Her first class was nothing shy of amazing - she did so well!!!!!!!

She went right to a colored square to sit on like such a big girl!

Leading the class in across the floor

Just checking it out to make sure I was still there...

A little help from Miss Heather :)

Following along with the rest of the class

Tapping to each corner of the room to look at the surprise at each one :)
(sorry for the blur, the curtain on the window is sheer)

I was so excited after that class and Kenna seemed to be as well, so we were both looking forward to the next week and all the rest to come, or so we thought!!!!!

The second week, she wanted NOTHING to do with going into her class.  She cried and grabbed on to me like a little monkey. It's so hard as a mom to not get frustrated and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a tinge of frustration over the 40 minutes we were there, but at the end of the day, I realized that she truly had something wrong with her and there had to be a reason she didn't want to go in.  I brought her to the Wed night class just to see and it was the same as the 2nd class except this time, she screamed for what seemed like an eternity before Miss Emily gave me the look of ya gotta come take her!!!!!  She didn't even want to go in when they let the parents in the room, as it was parent observation week.

After much thought, I realized a couple things.  While the studio and teachers are fantastic, I think the class was just not meant for her age.  She is not even 2.5 yet and the class is for 2.5 - 4 year olds with the majority being in that 3-4 age range.  That's a BIG difference!!!!! Also, while I get why they do it, they let the kids run in and out of class crying for their parents and I honestly think that Kenna has been watching that and processing it in her brain that it must be scary to be in there since all these little girls keep going in and out crying. So I reached out to my friend Lindsey from college who co-owns a studio in EP called Dance Esteem as she had reached out to me before trying to get me to sign Mackenna up for their 2.5-3 year old class.  Much to my surprise, they still had a couple spots in their Saturday AM class, so I decided to try that out with Mackenna this weekend.  I'm happy to report that this is A WAY MORE AGE APPROPRIATE CLASS!!!!!!  Miss Sarah was amazing with the kids and they did so many things to keep them moving, engaged and dancing!!!!  It's a mommy and me class until Dec. and then after that, the mom's leave and they work on their recital routine.  I went in with her this first time (right now, the 4 that are in there, don't seem to need their mommy's. But that's the cool thing, they let you come in if your child isn't ready to be left alone just yet) and just sat and watched, but by the end of class, she got up a few times, played with the tambourines they had for one part, waved her princess wand a few times and wanted to stand on her special colored spot  :)  At the end of class, they line up at the door and put their hand on their head to get a special sticker before they leave and Mackenna loved that!

Since we've left, she's asked me over and over again if she can go back to class!!!!!!  I'm sure I'll have to go in a few more times with her, but I have a feeling she'll be feeling more comfortable sooner than I think :)