The Nutcracker!

This weekend was all Nutcracker all the time.

The dance studio where Rebecca and Lily dance performs the Nutcracker and both kids danced in it this weekend.

Friday night found us at the dress rehearsal.

Saturday night was the first performance of the Nutcracker. I love attending the Saturday night performance because it's a little like being on a date with David. I get all dressed up and then we watch our girls dance.

I adore watching all of the girls dance. The youngest dancers are four years old.

Do you have any idea how cute a bunch of four year old girls dressed as fairies are? I almost died from the cute.

The oldest dancers are seventeen. It is extraordinary to see the complete transformation of dancers. The youngest are led on stage and through their dances. As the older girls appear on stage you can see them becoming more focused and steady in their steps. By thirteen and fourteen they can dance and smile at the same time. Their movements are more confident.

The sixteen and seventeen year old's bring down the house. Some rise high en pointe. They smile and dance with a grace which appears effortless, yet every audience member knows that to stand on one's toes, to leap from ten short digits is the product of work, pain and dedication.

When the older girls dance onstage in solos, they are cheered from backstage by their friends.

Those whoops and shrieks of joy for each other bring me to tears each and every time.

It is a thrill to witness it.

I know that Christine, the owner of the dance studio reads this blog.

The rest of you should know that the reason her studio is so special is because of the culture she cultivates.

There are no demands that dancers be thin or plan on becoming professionals. She wants the children to love to dance and to love the people with whom they dance. She knows every dancer at her studio by name and at the end of the year everyone gets a medal.

Mothers sometimes tell me about what goes on at other studios. Dancing is work, form must be perfect; it can be a grim business.

I am so so grateful that my girls are part of such a great place, and look forward to moving their bodies, each year with a little more grace and a bit more confidence than the year before.

Thank you Christine and Lauren (Nutcracker in the picture and dance instructor) for loving my girls so much and for making sure that each year they keep on dancing.