PRIMA BALLERINA!

Many little girls have dreams of becoming prima ballerinas', my three were no different.

My initiation into the wonderful, exhausting and expensive world of ballet was when Shirley, my eldest daughter, was 3 years old and still in nursery school.

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"I want to do ballet, ALL the girls in my class are doing ballet". I think "You have just learned to walk" , but say nothing." Have you noticed that your child is ALWAYS the ONLY child not doing something great and are therefore deprived children?

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I duly met with her teacher who referred me to the ballet teacher.

That was the first of many years filled with ballet exams, concerts and practice runs which involved all three of my girls at once.

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As the years went by, each was at a different stage and doing different things in different studios, and this also involved many different colourful and exotic outfits!

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To keep up with their times and places I made a list of who had to be where when!

However, this was my first ballerina. And in the picture she was a chocolate sweet. The leotard was a stretch material, the icing is thin foam rubber cut to look like icing and the red ball on top of the hat is polystyrene and is a CHERRY.

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The outfit was carefully brought home and put in a safe place, we thought. My second baby girl was crawling, saw the cherry ....."WOW, she must have thought (baby thoughts of course!) " WHATS TO EAT!" As babies do, she put it in her mouth and took a bite.

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Shirley had a major melt down, this was a CRISES, and was hysterical with grief at the sight of her bitten cherry. Kerry cried because Shirley was crying.

Paint, I need paint, I will flatten the bite and paint over it. Good idea.

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Bad idea.

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As soon as the paint touched the polystyrene, a huge hole appeared. There must have been an ingredient in the paint that ate certain things, like polystyrene. I should have left the bite. There were no more cherries.

The day of the concert arrived. The dance was of a little group of chocolates dancing out of a box (seen in the background) around the stage in a circle and then back into the box.

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The lady on the left was to keep the chocolates dancing in the same direction and in something resembling a circle and executing a successful entrance back into the chocolate box!

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I don't remember what happened to the cherry.