My Littlest Ballerina

Another day, another first...

In stark contrast to Sunday's skateboarding, on Monday Lola took her first ballet class.

And did she love it? Absolutely.

Dressed in her leotard, skirt and ballet slippers she pranced around the studio on tippy toes, arms in the air, spinning here and there.

When it came time to follow instruction from her teacher she was super serious and concentrated very hard. Ava has always been the same too. Ballet, ice skating, cheerleading... what ever she's doing there's always a serious look on her face that tells me she's concentrating as hard as she can on getting it right. Lola had the same serious face throughout the whole class but I knew she was having a ball.

Here's my littlest ballerina enjoying her first class...

Little dancer

My Littlest Mermaid

Lola has recently graduated from the "Mummy & Me" swimming class to the "Big Girl" swimming class. The thought of her taking swimming lessons without me in the pool was a little daunting at first but I knew she was ready for it, her teacher knew she was ready for it, and she knew herself that she was ready for it. In fact, once she discovered that she could float on her back unsupported (if only for a few brief seconds) she told her teacher "I can float on my back. I don't need swimming lessons anymore"!

We had a little break from swimming over Christmas and New Year and a few weeks ago we got back into it with the start of Lola's new lessons.

Lesson 1 wasn't that successful. Lola sat on the steps, water up to her shoulders, crying for half the class. Towards the end of the class she had calmed down and I could tell that she wanted to join in but she was lacking the confidence.

Lesson 2 there was a miraculous turn around. She didn't cry once and she did absolutely everything her teacher asked. Success! She still sat on the steps for most of the class but seeing as she can't yet reach the bottom of the pool with her head above water she'll be sitting there for a while!

Today was Lesson 3. Once again Lola enjoyed her swimming lesson, didn't cry at all (well, not until she hit her head on the hand rail getting out at the end) and did everything her teacher asked. She has so much more confidence than she did only two weeks ago and is really excited about her swimming lessons now.

I took my camera along to Lola's lesson today so I thought I'd share some photos. I must point out that most of the photos were taken from the hallway outside the pool room and the windows aren't the clearest. So apologies for a little blurriness ;)

Ready for the class to start