Phew
I've perfected the "ballet bun." I'm a ballet bun genius! All it takes, after all, is 45 bobby pins and about half a pound of gel.
I forgot to bring the camera, so you'll never know how ridiculously cute Dutch looked in her ridiculous "frog princess" costume, and the video camera is out of batteries, so you'll never get to see the utterly hilarious frog princess dance, and you'll just have to take my word for all of it.
Cook watched the whole show, but he was too far away to be able to see much, and reported that he spent much of the time contemplating the poignance of little kids doing ballet. When I asked what he meant, he said "you know, birth, death, the innocence of youth, that sort of thing." Weirdly enough, I do kind of know, because watching the kids from the wings actually brought tears to my eyes. Something about their eager little faces and hoppity little bodies, and, you know, their lives ahead of them. That sort of thing.
Of course, I also had the much-less-poignant experience of spending about five hours out of the last 30 stuck in a room with a whole bunch of revved-up "ballet-ers," ranging in age from 4 to 7, all dressed in rented costumes, with their hair falling out of their perfect buns, and FORBIDDEN TO EAT ANYTHING. It was getting kind of scary by the end of each performance- they were all hyper and starving and the situation was rapidly devolving to a let's-get-Piggy point. We all survived, though, even The Totally Loony Kid who stole food, screeched backstage, and ordered me to "watch!" and then picked her nose and ate the booger. Dutch was a star, of course, well-behaved, cheerful, charmingly excited, non-nose-picking, and attentive to all instructions. (You'd never guess she's a horrible brat at home, if you met her out in the world.) She was very proud of herself. And I'm SO glad it's over for the summer. Dutch has the option of starting ballet again in the fall, if she wants and our budget permits, but I'm hoping she just sort of forgets about it.
I forgot to bring the camera, so you'll never know how ridiculously cute Dutch looked in her ridiculous "frog princess" costume, and the video camera is out of batteries, so you'll never get to see the utterly hilarious frog princess dance, and you'll just have to take my word for all of it.
Cook watched the whole show, but he was too far away to be able to see much, and reported that he spent much of the time contemplating the poignance of little kids doing ballet. When I asked what he meant, he said "you know, birth, death, the innocence of youth, that sort of thing." Weirdly enough, I do kind of know, because watching the kids from the wings actually brought tears to my eyes. Something about their eager little faces and hoppity little bodies, and, you know, their lives ahead of them. That sort of thing.
Of course, I also had the much-less-poignant experience of spending about five hours out of the last 30 stuck in a room with a whole bunch of revved-up "ballet-ers," ranging in age from 4 to 7, all dressed in rented costumes, with their hair falling out of their perfect buns, and FORBIDDEN TO EAT ANYTHING. It was getting kind of scary by the end of each performance- they were all hyper and starving and the situation was rapidly devolving to a let's-get-Piggy point. We all survived, though, even The Totally Loony Kid who stole food, screeched backstage, and ordered me to "watch!" and then picked her nose and ate the booger. Dutch was a star, of course, well-behaved, cheerful, charmingly excited, non-nose-picking, and attentive to all instructions. (You'd never guess she's a horrible brat at home, if you met her out in the world.) She was very proud of herself. And I'm SO glad it's over for the summer. Dutch has the option of starting ballet again in the fall, if she wants and our budget permits, but I'm hoping she just sort of forgets about it.
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