Her preschool held a Thanksgiving sing-a-long show. Each age group of kids sang 3 or 4 songs while wearing goofy little holiday related costumes. Parents got to take lots of pictures. Grandparents got to oooohh and ahhhh over their
Grace was dressed as a pilgrim. Thankfully, she did not end up wearing the "Indian Feathers" headband. My political correctness meter would have been buzzing off the charts. Grace is in the oldest class of preschool so her group sang last. It took 3 hours to get to her groups performance slot!!! OK, it only took 30 minutes, but it felt like 3 hours.
Before we left for the big show Brian had suggested that perhaps he should stay home with the boys and I take Grace alone. But I said no. Idiot (not Brian, me!) I thought this would be a fun family event. Haven would want to see his sister sing. We'd take lots of great pictures and leave smiling and laughing. Idiot.
We arrive at the school and the parking lot is so full that we end up having to park in what I am pretty sure is an area of landscaping. But we weren't the first car there so we figured it must be OK. We got inside and Grace's teacher ushered her over to get into costume. It was so packed we couldn't find a place to sit. Brian managed to harass a row of people into squeezing closer together so that we could squeeze ourselves and the boys into the middle of their pack. Nobody is ever happy to see us headed towards their row.
We sat down. Haven and Manny were angels. JoJo, oh sweet JoJo. He's from the other side of the shoulder. He was in an especially good mood which generally leads to more squirming, flailing, giggling and climbing. A nice woman next to us offered Brian some crayons and paper, but Brian declined, knowing that JoJo would only stick the crayons in his mouth, gag himself, and likely throw up on the stranger. Luckily, we didn't have to worry about keeping the kids quiet because this place was in a state of utter chaos. Whose idea was it to have a performance of 0-4 year olds!!!!
While waiting for the big photo op I took out my camera and discovered that BOTH of my rechargeable batteries were dead. So I fired up the camera on my Blackberry. Finally, Grace's class was up. They walked single file to the stage as parents were invited to the first row to take pictures. I squeezed in with Manny on one hip to see this: the saddest little pilgrim girl ever.
I know the picture quality is awful. Remember, it was taken on my phone with Manny trying to grab it out of my hands. And it was the best of all 4 pictures I managed to take.....before Grace ran off the stage. My poor sweet little petunia had a raging case of stage fright. I could see it on her face as they were lining up. As they started the first song all the other kids were singing and doing the ridiculous hand gestures. But Grace was just hanging her little head and standing stiff as a board. When I caught her eye I mouthed to her "Are you scared?" She nodded her head and her little lip was starting to quiver. So I motioned for her to come down off the stage and into Mama's arms. She hugged me and then said "I wanna see Haven". He's her very own security blanket.
So we wandered back out of the crowd, found Haven, Daddy, and JoJo and made our way to the car. I was beat, but once off that stage Grace was all better and ready to party. Grace has always tended to be a bit quiet, a bit shy. It was so hard to watch my little princess up there looking so uncomfortable and unhappy. Maybe we all just should have stayed home.
I guess that Grace is going to be a techie, not an actor.
