Whew. We made it through her first dance recital. I made several parenting errors that made it so that we almost didn't have a dancer on the stage. I will write them out so that I can remember what NOT to do next time.
In the days before the dance recital I DO NOT:
1. Take the girls to a very fun and exciting work Christmas party where they will be with tons of other kids, get riled up and stay up late.
2. Take the girls to the location of the recital to see a performance of the Nutcracker. It scared Libby a little, and she missed her nap, and she became determined that she WOULD NOT dance in the Nutcracker.
3. Let Libby or Sarah miss a nap.
4. Let Derek take the video camera, which led to an extra trip to Shorewood, which led to him having to stop for gas, which led to him missing the performance.
5. Also, on the day of the recital, if she is crying, I WILL STAY WITH LIBBY. This time they took her away from me and she cried for 30 minutes before they came to get me. It was hard to calm her down after crying for that long.
But, I did it. Thanks to a good lesson I learned from my own mom. Bribery. I promised Libby a Blizzard (plum pink perfection--a flavor from Purplicious--with a cone). Ididn't care what I promised her. It almost didn't work, but finally it did. At the last minute, when the music had started I said to her again, if you want a blizzard, you have to get out there and dance. Do you want to? And she did. And she knew her stuff. The teachers are in the wings, and she didn't look at them more than once or twice. Oh I love her.
4 comments:
whew. i can't believe she did such a great job after such a rough start.
Oh man! I can't wait till Ally gets to do a dance class! Watching your girls together(in blog land) makes me want a little sister for Ally!!!
Oh that was darling. She really did know her stuff! I loved that girl 4th in that just stood there the entire time with her hands clasped. :)
That was so so cute. She did so well! Way to get her out there! :-)
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