Her Ballerina Son

"I hate football!" Jeremy exclaimed for what to be the hundredth time that week. HIs mom sighed.

"I know, hon, but you made a commitment to the coach, to the team, and to your brother."

"Jimmy knows how much I hate it. He says he doesn't mind if I quit."

"You need some sort of extracurricular. I'm not going to have you moping around the house all the time." She knew that Jeremy was not as athletic as his younger brother. That was why the coaches had agreed to have him stay with the boys a year younger than him, including his brother, which probably caused him to hate the sport even more.

"I've tried, but there aren't any good ones."

"I'll see what I can find, but you agree to do whatever I pick?" Jeremy nodded, simply relieved that the end of football was in his sights.

His mom tried for a week, but it was just like Jeremy had said: there really were not many other options. She did not like the idea of him doing martial arts. Swimming lessons were out of the question since he already knew how to swim. What was she to do?

One day, while grocery shopping, she spied a flyer on the community bulletin board. Ballet Lessons: Girls 5 to 18. She smiled to herself. When she was pregnant what Jimmy, she had dreamed of having a daughter who she could enroll in things like ballet. She only had two sons, but maybe... did she dare? Jeremy's hair was fairly long, but passing her son off as a girl? She fought with herself as she drove home, but she soon made up her mind. She wondered if she was crazy as she went to the studio's website. No, no boys classes offered. The cursor hovered over the online application. Was she really doing this? It was two towns over. No one would know. Still, to enroll her son in a girls ballet class…

Resolving to mull it over for a few days, she closed the website. She found herself back on it not an hour later after the boys got in another fight. Jeremy needed some sort of outlet and it was going to be this. Before she knew it, he was enrolled and she had his full outfit ordered.

The way Jeremy reacted, she knew she had made the right choice. He yelled, screamed, and threw a fit. Surrounding him with gracefulness and femininity would help alleviate that aggression, she knew.

"You'll love it."

"Will not!"

"Well, I paid for a year of lessons, so you'll learn to love it." Her mind was made up. Helping him into his leotard and tights for the first time, she smiled to herself. Sure, it was unorthodox, but she was finally getting the ballerina she had dreamed of.

They arrived and Jeremy met his instructor. He had refused to allow his mom to put his hair into a bun, but the instructor did not know that. The moment she saw Jeremy, standing there shyly in his tights and leotard, she descended on him and, ignoring his protests, tied his hair up in a bun with a ribbon.

“Go over there with the other girls, young lady.” She said. His mom smiled, knowing all too well how much Jeremy must be seething inside. She had told him he would be doing ballet as a girl, but to actually hear it from another person must have been something else.

As she watched a red-faced Jeremy try to learn how to do basic stretches with the girls in his class, she smiled again. If everything went well, she would think up an excuse to enroll Jimmy as well. With luck, in a year's time, she would have two ballerina boys for sons.