Burnt Fudge: I know...

Believe me, I know... it's awful... absolutely awful that I could not invite every single one of you to Abby's ballet recital. Haven't heard much about it? That's because I don't want to ignite a firey salt in your wounds that you were unable to attend.

And... well...

I hate to tell you, it was adorable.

Traumatic for dear old mum here, but fabulous in the end.

Here's the thing. It's just about... maybe a minute - two minutes for each class in which the kids follow about... 2/3 of the routine they are supposed to be following. The cute thing is that Abby's teacher has stockpiled (apparently) hundreds if not thousands (I presume she was kidding on the 'thousands' comment, but I'm not sure) of costumes that she lets her classes use for their recitals. It's just above and beyond the call of duty and quite heart-warming:

Everything was going smoothly on a really difficult day. Steve and I were due at a work-shop (clean the school) from 9-12, Abby was due at dress rehearsal at 11-12:15. Performance was at 4, dancers had to get there at 3:30. SO instead of the wacky musical chairs routine I was thinking of setting up for babysitting/etc

my original plan:
8:30am : run Jack/Abby over to Gramma's
9am: be at workshop with Steve
10am: have Gramma bring both kids to me so I could bring Jack up to Zoozie to babysit during the ballet dress rehearsal and get Abby dressed and hair done to dress rehearsal
10-12: Gramma finishes my routine at the school while I am at the dress rehearsal
12:15: pick up/nurse Jack from Zoozie's
Get lunch for everyone.
Feel guilty.
Pass out.
3pm Run Jack BACK over to Gramma's, get Abby ready AGAIN, get her to studio

The actual plan:
8:30am: bring Jack to Zoozie's, leave Abby where she was at Gramma's
9am: be at workshop with Steve
10:20am: Gramma brings Abby to school so I can do her hair and give Gramma ballet clothes.
11am: Gramma takes Abby to rehearsal but does not have to do manual labor at school
11:30am: Steve and I done and meet up with Zoozie.
and... ugh, forget it, I don't want to type it all out. Point being, it was simpler.

SO the only hiccup in the otherwise perfectly run machine of a day was that Abby had a complete emotional meltdown when fitted for her head-piece. One of the other parents told me I needed to get back in to help because she was crying, but now that I look back, perhaps I should not have.

See heres the thing. When the teacher had the meeting about this, we had just seen a run through of the performance from class and she said, thats about as good as its going to get and as long, so please don't freak your kids out, don't force them if they don't want to, don't get upset if they run to you in the audience blah blah blah. SO when Abby was emotionally distraught over this headband I figured they'd say, 'no problem.' SO I confidently tell Abby to go tell the teacher. She responds kindly, "Oh, you have to wear a headpiece."

I blink several times and am without words. I almost left there and then, but ugh, it is SO hard when you know something IS actually important to your child and yet they are too emotionally distraught to know it and will be MORE emotionally distraught when they miss the whole thing.

Here Abby is explaining what happened to Daddy:

Teacher suggests a less obtrusive headband, Abby still miserably upset... not just crying or whining, we're talking full on sobs. So I get ready to take off her costume and pack it in and she settles, and holds hands with Anatol (the male lead in their little dance). So , I make a run for it to the audience.

And lo and behold, the girl came out with BOTH headbands on... dry-eyed and cheerful as could be.

I did not just fall off the turnip truck, I am completely aware that my child will do more things willingly for teachers and authority figures... and other kids than for me. But *they* were the ones who told me not to force it!

Lest you all judge them too harshly, not only did they set this whole thing up and give costumes and set up professional pictures and video, they also got little personalized coloring books which, for some reason, Abby loved... like... at the same level of emotion as she was upset earlier, she LOVED this coloring packet, go figure: