Each week, DD and I do a “Mommy & Me” ballet class at the Decatur School of Ballet. Our instructor, Miss Dee, is wonderful with the little ones, very patient, very flexible, full of energy, and quite attuned to what the girls are up for on any given day. Given my little one, that patience and flexibility come in handy. DD is, to be sure, her own little person.
In class, we do an exercise I’m sure most folks know called “butterfly.” (Just sit on the floor with the bottoms of your feet held together close to your crotch and stretch your bent legs down to the floor. Flap gently if you wish!) About the second or third week, Miss Dee asked each little girl what color butterfly she was. The responses came in turn: “orange” and “pink” and “blue” and “yellow.” All fluttery, pretty butterfly colors.
Then came DD’s turn.
“And what color butterfly are you?” queried Miss Dee to DD.
DD wrinkled her brow in a mannerism that she most definitely got from me, brows scrunching down between her eyes. She looked at Miss Dee for a second, very seriously.
“I’m NOT a butterfly,” she announced in a manner that brooked no disagreement. “I’M a BULLFROG.”
And, that is my daughter in a nutshell.
I enjoyed telling that story for several weeks. It wasn’t quite the end of the story, though. Miss Dee, being the wonderfully patient person that she is, tried to accommodate “Bullfrog.”
“What color butterfly would you pretend to be if you WERE pretending to be a butterfly” she asked the next week.
Again, Bullfrog replied, “I’m NOT a butterfly. I’m a BULLFROG.”
The following week, Miss Dee tried again with the hypothetical butterfly question, garnering the same response. Finally, a couple of weeks after the initial “Bullfrog pronouncement,” she acquiesced.
“What color bullfrog are you this week?” she asked kindly.
“Green!” Bullfrog replied enthusiastically. Miss Dee thought she had it made. For two weeks, she asked Bullfrog her color and got an animated “green” response. But Bullfrog had ideas of her own.
After several weeks of having a lovely green Bullfrog sitting in butterfly pose, about a week ago, Miss Dee asked Bullfrog what color frog she was that day.
Bullfrog scrunched her brow down in that recalcitrant manner and replied, “I’m NOT a bullfrog. I’m a CROCODILE.”
2 comments:
I think this is a great story, shows the spunk and fierce originality our kids have if we don't get in the way!
Some appropriately adorable ballet pics would much appreciated!
Well, she DOES have a mind of her own, but that spunk and fierce independence came straight from Mama. Go Bullfrog.
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