One of the big events planned for the holiday season was a girls trip to see the Nutcracker ballet with my mom, sisters and two women that I've considered second moms since I was in fifth grade. These ladies and their families have had a hand in help shaping me into the woman I've become and it's such a blessing to have the opportunity to pull qualities and characteristics from them that I hope to emulate as a mom. The fact that they were able to join us made the day that much better.
At three and a half I wanted to make sure that Bella had the best chance possible of making it through the ballet without any meltdowns so about a week before Thanksgiving we started reading the book every couple nights and I borrowed Barbie and the Nutcracker from the library (the Barbie movie, while keeping true to the Nutcracker story, was brutal). Prior to the ballet she was able to recite the parts of the story she was looking forward to seeing so I was confident we'd make it through.
While the whole ballet was amazing, nothing was better than Bella's awe watching it. When the curtains raised and the orchestra was loudly playing, her head looked like a typewriter scanning left to right and back again trying to soak it all in. Not to say she wasn't a little confused though - about twenty minutes into the performance she asked me when the ballerinas were coming out. Apparently if you're not wearing a tutu, you're just not that serious. She also lost interest pretty quickly into the second act when al the different dancers in the Land of Sweets were performing. She wanted to dance in front of her seat, and as long as she was quiet I didn't have a problem with it. -until I turned to get her some fruit snacks to buy time and by the time I turned back around she was standing on her tiptoes hands raised above her head dancing her own ballet down the aisle... fortunately when the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince (?) came out for their performance Bean was completely captivated once again.
When the final curtain fell and we were herded out of the auditorium the dancers were in the lobby to greet everyone for pictures, which was a really nice surprise because Bella was stoicly excited to see them up close and immediately followed her cousin Lili's lead to ask for autographs and pose pretty for a picture. I'm pretty sure we either got a picture or an autograph from 90% of the performers and were definitely among the last ones to leave. If she chooses to be a ballet roadie I suppose I should count my blessings...
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| a holiday girls night to the Nutcracker - makes my heart happy |
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| for every cute picture there were about five goofy ones... come on, just. say. cheese. |
