Close your Eyes

You are going to have to close your eyes. And imagine for a minute. Because I did not bring my camera with me, so cannot share with you the funny pictures. And a still picture just would not do anyway.

Ukrainian dancing class. Parent viewing day. A group of 3 and 4 year olds, little Mina among them. She is the smallest, and the youngest by about 6 months. They are all lined up, as straight as possible for 3 and 4 yr olds.

Except for Mina, who stand apart, facing the wrong way.

The teacher asks the children to imagine a ball, right in front of their feet. And tells the children to kick the ball "one, two, one two", and do the "kick kick" step. So the children kick their balls, one two, one two.

Except for Mina, whose ball has rolled across the gym. She follows after it, picks it up and throws it in the air. Then it starts to bounce, and so she hops around in a circle, like her ball.

The other children are doing "kick kick" in unison.

Mina's ball has once again rolled away.

Now it is time for the "stomp" step. (It is Ukrainian dancing after all, not ballet!) The teacher asks the children to imagine a bug on the floor, and to stomp on it. Which the children do happily, it is fun to stomp on bugs.

Except for Mina, who does the initial stomp, then sits down, and removes the bug from the bottom of her dancing slipper, walks to the corner of the gym, and puts it down on the floor. then tries to find more bugs on the floor.

And when it is time to "draw a line on the floor to hop over", Miss Mina sits down, drawing a line that turns into a letter M, and then finishes writing the "INA".

I think that perhaps she is not going to be a dancer. Her dancing teacher says that "Mina makes me sweat! She is very, um.... Artistic". (But not in a danc-ey sort of way.)

So Keith and I, sitting on the bench, tried very hard not to pee our pants laughing.