Will Dance for Candy!

Ms. Crystal, Jayla's dance teacher, left a message on my cell phone the morning after last week's incident. I, of course, did not get the message until 5 days later but, the general gist was that she wanted to help if she could. She was wondering if something was scaring Jayla because she had gone from seemingly loving dance to absolutely wanting nothing to do with it. Ms. Crystal suggested an "incentive system" if I thought it would help. I, of course, was willing to try. And really this isn't totally about my own desires because it is also largely about my money that I have already invested in this.

Yesterday was dance day again for Jayla. I started working on her before school by simply giving her a run down of the schedule for the day. She is generally curious about whether she is going to school or church or wherever on any given day. So, yesterday morning I told her that she was going to school and then she was going to dance. I tried be very non-chalant, no big deal, "I didn't notice that tantrum last week" about mentioning dance.

Later in the morning, we were talking about dance again and I asked her if she was going to dance pretty? She replied, "No - I'm going to sit in the car!" with a big grin on her face. I ignored her comment and told her that she needed to dance and then we could come home and eat some more of her Valentine's candy. She said, "okay".

I got a little nervous once I picked her up from school, though, because in the car, she kept saying she wanted to go "to Jayla's house, not to dance". Again, I was still trying to play it cool and just told her that Ms. Crystal wanted to see her. I asked her if she wanted to see Ms. Crystal. She said that she did. So, I kept going with that and sparked an entire conversation about Ms. Crystal that got her mind off of talking about going home.

When we got to the dance studio, we were still talking about Ms. Crystal and Jayla cooperatively got out of the car, came into the studio, and waved cheerfully at anyone in her path. We got her clothes changed while singing a song that I made up (about bears not having to use the potty). Then she talked to Ms. Crystal who promised her a lollipop if she was a good girl.

Jayla was so excited to dance after that. And she did really, really well. She listened to the teacher, she participated fully, and it did my heart good. She seemed to enjoy it as much as she did back in the stoneage when she begged me to dance (November 2007). And don't think that the first thing she said after Ms. Crystal dismissed the class wasn't "Where's my candy?". I don't know if it was the candy or just the fickle nature of a 2.5-year-old but, whatever it was - we got over the first hurdle. Hopefully, we are on the road to enjoying dance classes again.