Life: Idiotropic

About a month ago we were in the van driving somewhere and Elise started singing something. I was in my own quiet bubble and didn't really pay attention until Tiara, in the seat next to me, exclaimed, "Elise! How do you know that song???" At school. She's dancing to it for her Christmas performance. "I can't believe my 5 year old sister knows the Black Eyed Peas!" exclaimed Tiara. While I'm thinking, "Black Eyed Peas for Christmas? What happened to Silent Night or Away in the Manger?"

At 1415 we arrived at the school and met Tiara. 15 minutes later we were the first in the theater for the 1515 Year 1 Christmas Program. Four classes of kindergarten age children put together the story of Frosty the Snowman with the help of their teachers and the music teacher.

The curtain rose with groups of costumed children in a semicircle on the stage. For 5 minutes parents stood, clapped, waved, and shouted greetings while the little creatures snowflakes strained to see the familiar faces. Bright smiles of recognition and frantic waves signaled they'd found their families and finally, the crowd calmed and the program began.

A round snowman walked awkwardly in his black rubber boots to front center and said loudly in his best British English with a very distinct Spanish accent, "I am lonely. I want some friends."

Music started, a group of saggy tight wearing snowflakes jumped up, said (also in Spanish inflected British) "We'll be your friends!" and began dancing.

Poor little things. The teachers sent home lists of what the children needed for their costumes. I wonder if the parents had any idea what sort of visual this would be. These snowflakes along with a group of bears and several other unfortunate creatures wore tights with short tops and other little costume pieces that did not cover their bottoms. One little snowflake wore darling (but very apparent) panties with bright red hearts under her white tights. Every one saw them. Many children (really, a lot - almost the norm) had such ill fitted tights, the crotches hung down to their knees making skipping, jumping, and dancing very difficult, awkward, and fairly sad. Poor kids.

And this was the play. After the snowflakes left, the rotund snowman came back to stage center and repeated his inflected line again and the bears jumped up and said, "We'll be your friend!" and begun dancing. Trees, snowflakes, bears, owls, elves, and fairies all danced - and the snowman was still lonely until a group of other snowman danced. Then one from each group joined hands and danced around the lonely one in a circle while the entire group sung "Frosty the Snowman" repeatedly, the chubby snowman falling down and tripping in the center of the moving circle, and the children laughing and giggling the entire time.

And my little star - she was a fairy. A rock star fairy. She danced to "Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night" by the Black Eyed Peas. And she was smiley and beautiful and knew the moves. Confident. And then they started jumping. And she was jumping with the biggest smile so enthusiastically. It was amazing. The music was infectious. Of all the songs, this one, though not even the slightest bit Christmasy, was obviously the crowd's favorite. And then... the frilly purple skirt with the little purple stars... fell down!!! And Elise stopped, tried to fix it, the held the ends, pushed her lip out, and just stared at it for a moment. Her big eyes looked like they would tear up any second. We worried. But my big girl pulled through... not with quite the same gusto, but she finished the dance, then was part of that special group that danced around the falling snowman at the end.

So Hooray, ELISE!!! She did it! And she is a great little dancer.

A social at the end... lemon cake and turrones. Children eating sugar and running wild. We stayed a bit, then went home in our new lemon, my rental car.