Lainey's big day

We had lots of fun end-of-year school programs/recitals this year.......all on the same day.

Laine was so excited (and nervous) the night before that she forgot to sleep very much. Classic. So the day started with a lot of tears. Most of the tears were about first grade transition day. She was really scared of the first graders for some reason. I think it was because I told her they all had knives in their cubbyholes but I'm not 100% sure. We kept trying to convince her that it was basically a normal day because as soon as it was time to go visit the 1st graders she was going to have to leave anyway for her Spanish school program.

This year's Spanish production was Little Red Riding Hood. (Caperucita Roja - if you ask Lainey) I'm grateful that they FINALLY have started providing full translations in the program for these things. The first year I went to one of these I wanted to get out my phone and play tetris the whole time because I had NO idea what was going on. Just a bunch of kids - cute kids - running around speaking a language I do not understand at all. I felt left out and ridiculed every time the audience laughed at a funny line and I only got to laugh when one of the kids tripped and fell down. Anyway, full translations now so I can follow what is actually happening. Big relief. Lainey played Caperucita Roja's mama. She had a pretty sweet wig. As mentioned I don't speak spanish but still, Lainey (and most of the other kids) sounded pretty authentic. If there had been any INS workers in the audience I think they may have tried to deport the Hurricane.

Here is a little clip of her BIG moment. I had some other clips too but I started this post at 9:00 am this morning. It is now 11:15 PM and I still can't get the other videos to load.


THEN there was the dance recital. Laine has been taking lessons at the School of Dance from her favorite Miss Courtney and she has loved it. She has been SO excited for the recital and truthfully, I've been excited to see it. The costumes were amazing and one of her dances was to a Jackson 5 song so how bad could it be? The answer: 2 hours long. I was duped. I knew Lainey's songs/dances totaled about 6 minutes or so. I assumed there would be a few other groups of small children dancing around for 6 to 10 minutes each and we would be out of there in 45 minutes. Hour at the most. Then I saw the program.

Before I degrade the program any more, let me first say this important thing. It was fun. Especially getting to watch Lainey, of course. I loved watching her big smile and her intense focus and sometimes her peering off to the side of the stage to see what her teacher was doing so she could figure out what she was supposed to be doing. It was a delight to watch her.

Now that I have that important information out of the way let me also say that it was a bit like the music man. With the little kids, no one really cared how well they danced. They were all in super cute costumes on a stage with bright lights and make up and how they performed didn't really matter one bit.

The other funny thing worth mentioning is that Lainey was excited because she knew she got to wear make up for the recital. She also however was a little concerned because she knows there is NO make up in our house and even if we had make up in our house, no one would really know what to do with it. As soon as she realized make up was an option for the recital she immediately requested that Marie call Aunt Janie so she could bring make-up over and help her get ready. AND she wanted Marie to call the babysitter to come over and do her hair. This girl has no faith! In the end, you can see, hair and make-up turned out just fine, and even Lainey was satisfied (once she borrowed the SUPER bright lipstick from another dancer at the recital!)