The Recital

Oh my, what a weekend it was. Emerson's first year-end dance recital was Saturday morning. The fun began Friday afternoon with her dress rehearsal. I brought her home early from school so she would get a full nap under her belt, then I had to wake her up to put on her makeup and do her hair. That was mistake #1. The girl doesn't enjoy being awakened from a deep sleep... who does, I guess. She stood pretty still for makeup and hair, then got really excited to put her costume on. Daddy came home with Jax and kept him and Baby Hane here while the Ballet Queen and I went to dress rehearsal.

Things were going fine until I dropped her off in the classroom with her fellow ballet friends. For some reason, she panicked and didn't want me to leave. This is from the girl who has literally never, EVER cried when I have left her. Not even at that 18-month clingy, separation anxiety-ridden phase. She just doesn't. So the fact that she decides to cry on the day she wears mascara is HILARIOUS. (Insert appropriate amount of sarcasm.) It became a spectacle of me not knowing whether to just walk out and let her calm down or stay and try to get the black streaks off her face before she went on stage. Of course staying just made her cling worse, so I finally just reassured her I would be back and walked out.

I sat next to my friend Leslie, and we laughed until we almost wet our pants as we shared our stress-laden stories of hair and makeup and feeling like "Toddlers and Tiaras" mothers. Finally it was Emerson's turn on stage for her ballet routine. She had stopped crying, but she was NOT about to dance. She stood and pouted and at one point even turned her back to the audience.  It was classic!  All I could do was hope and pray that she would actually dance during tap so I could get a video of it.  Which is now a moot point, of course.  She came out happy and danced her little heart out.  I was a proud momma! 

When we were in the car on the way home, I asked her about how it all went, and this is what came out of her mouth, verbatim.  (I actually grabbed a pen & paper so I wouldn't forget any of it).

"Mommy, I was a yittle confused about bow-yea (ballet) because I wasn't sure about it.  I just forgotted to sing about dancing.  I thought and I thought and just got a yittle confused.  And that's all, o-KAY?"  (Last part spoken in a tone as if to say, 'Back off, mom.')  She followed it up with, "But I didn't even get confused about tap.  I just tapped and tapped all around that tap floor." 

On Saturday at the actual recital, with Daddy, Mommy, Jax, Hayden, Uncle Trav, GiGi, and SueSue sitting proudly in the audience, she came out on stage for tap.  I quickly noticed she had been crying again, even after she bragged about how she wasn't going to cry again, and when the music started, she couldn't find her X to stand on.  Instead of just going ahead and dancing, she proceeded to look toward her teacher hiding in the wings and tell her she couldn't find her spot.  When she realized her teacher wasn't going to find it for her, she just stared out into the crowd with a frustrated expression and would NOT dance.  Finally, about halfway through the song, she found her little X and you could see that everything was right in her brain, and she danced away.  She likes her systems, that one.  Not at ALL like her Daddy.  :)

Here are some pictures of Emerson, 3 going on 16.  It was really quite terrifying to see her looking so grown-up.  Daddy's jaw dropped when he drove up while we were taking these pictures in the front yard.  I don't think he knew what to think.