En Pointe

Current mental soundtrack: "By the Rivers of Babylon" by Charles Loeffler

B got a letter from the ballet school last weekend, informing her that she has been approved to start pointe classes next year. The timing was really weird, and even her teacher agreed with that! The letter arrived before the last two weeks of classes, with instructions to buy pointe shoes for girls who are attending summer camp. Since B will not attend summer camp, she was told to wait until September to buy the shoes. So, yesterday the last half hour of class was devoted to checking the fit of everyone's pointe shoes, with a brief description on how to sew on the ribbons and elastic. Except for the handful of girls not attending camp, and the one girl B says did not get a letter. Now, if you were sending out promotion letters to all but one kid in the class, don't you think it would be courteous to send out a non-promotion letter to her, so she doesn't wonder if hers was lost in the mail? Or at least have a talk with her?

Our annual trip to the dance store is going to be an expensive one this year. Every time B goes up a level, she has to buy a new color of leotard. Last year was the year she moved up to a different style of tights, but fortunately those will stay the same from now on, so at least we won't have to buy those. She will get both pointe shoes and regular shoes (the ones I've been buying her at Payless are apparently inadequate, now that she's reached a higher level of dancing), at least one new leotard, and probably some miscellaneous stuff.