So my
daughter is three. and
stubborn. and not
potty trained.
More than anything in the whole wide world she loves
ballet and
dancers and
tutus.
This is not my doing, I played with
dump trucks as a young girl; and certainly not her father's, he specialized in
playing chess with himself and
tracing the lines on graph paper in his youth. It's just that we somehow made this little
girlie girl princess head and we are
amused and
enchanted and
slightly aghast as she prances around in my pink
babydoll nightie from the beginning of our marriage when I still wore
such things.
Last Christmas I turned on
PBS just in time to catch
Julie Andrews introducing the London Ballet's version of
The Nutcracker and I called her over “Hellcat! Come see the
ballet!” I thought she’d enjoy the opening scene and I’d be able to turn on
Law and Order in time to see
Jerry Orbach sum up the
plot twist with a
glib remark. but no.
An hour and a half later I awakened to the closing strains of
Tchaikovsky and an outline of my little daughter sitting about 4 inches from the screen, mouth open, eyes wide. Julie Andrews came back “For many of you this was your first Nutcracker, I do hope it was
a magical experience.” Oh believe me, Julie… it was.
Ok, so I have this little miss in
diapers who loves the ballet. What better motivation for potty training is there than lessons for she who keeps her pink princess Barbie™ panties dry all day? None I tell you, none.
But in appealing to my daughter’s girly and
artistic tendencies to achieve underpant dryness, what price will we pay? Will she enter into the
Madame Strict’s Ballet Academy at $18,000 per year
tuition? Will she wreck her
feet and have lifelong
back pain? Will she rehearse 18 hours a day, leaving no
social life and less
academic success? Will she become
anorexic and
bulimic and pop
Mini-thins and
Correctol like a cheese-loving-interstate-truckdriver, only to stop
menstruating at 14 and smoke
Marlborough Lights like a chimney until she is finally told at 22 that she is
washed up and should just quit and have babies and tell
bitter stories about what she could have been? Will she never learn to
count to five???
She chats to me from her
car seat in back as we drive. “
Mommy, I’m gonna do
ballet. And I’m gonna dance in a special skirt called a
tutu. And I’m gonna have a
hamburger and
french fries and a
soda for lunch.”
You sure are honey…
Update 07/09/2002
Success! She is a regular
potty visitor and in a
ballet class where her cuteness kills me for exactly one hour each week. She eats
fast food WAY too often and has a
sassy mouth that gets her PLENTY of
time outs. La!