Rehearsal Fail

Lydia had her rehearsal for her dance recital on Thursday night. First off, dance lessons are a racket. It's fairly inexpensive throughout the year, but then at the end of the year, they're like, "Hey, you want to be in the recital? Well, the costume costs about as much as your monthly mortgage payment. Oh, you actually want to watch your kid dance? That will be more than the price of a movie ticket for you to be able to see your own kid dance for three minutes and then hundreds of other people's kids dance for the remaining 87 minutes. And there will be two recitals. You want pictures? Pay up. A DVD of the performance? You might need a loan for that. Ka-ching!" Then, for a brief few minutes, you see your own little person up there, dancing her little heart out and beaming as she looks for you in the audience and waves excitedly. And it almost seems worth it.

As I said, Thursday night was the rehearsal. It was at a high school in the auditorium, so the girls are up there on the stage and the parents are in the audience. It's the only time parents can record the performance. Video recording is not allowed at the actual recital. So, I excitedly waited for her to come out, checking and double checking that I could find the record button on my camcorder in the dark theater. Then her group came out. Their little hands making an oval above their heads, dancing in on their tiny little toes, and my daughter, bawling. My heart dropped. It was that feeling of helplessness when you see your kid crying and it's not that obnoxious I-didn't-get-my-way-and-I-need-a-nap-and-somebody-better-give-me-what-I-want-right-now-or-I-will-start-stomping-my-feet cry. It was the heartbroken-I-am-so-hurt-and-sad-and-the-only-thing-I-want-right-now-is-a-hug cry. 

I stopped recording and waved her over to the front of the stage and discovered the reason for the giant crocodile tears. Her bow fell out. I put it back in her hair, gave her a big hug, and asked her if she was ready to go back. She nodded and I tossed her back on stage and she went back to the other little ballerinas. She got into the dance a for a bit, but soon started wailing again. It was well past her bedtime, and she was exhausted and the whole bow thing was just too much. After the rehearsal I taught her how to put her bow in so we wouldn't have another bow incident. 

Here are two videos, split from when I turned off the camcorder to fix the bow, and then started recording again.

Her first recital was today. She did amazing. The bow stayed in her hair and she remembered most of her steps and she smiled and looked adorable. I'm looking forward to tomorrow going just as well.

A offshoot of the dance story... I let Lydia wear some make-up for it and when I was putting it on, she asked me, "Mommy, when do you put your rosy cheeks on?" She meant blush. I told her I do in the morning. "But when in the morning?" I told her when I'm getting ready at the gym. "To make you look beautiful?" 

"Yes," I said, "Do you think it's working?"

"Oh, yes!" she assured me.

Audrey got a sly smile on her face and laughed and said, "I don't think it is!!!"