buck·eye - noun, \ˈbək-ˌī\
1: any of various shrubs or trees (genus Aesculus) of the horse-chestnut family; also : the large nutlike seed of such a shrub or tree
2: capitalized : a native or resident of Ohio — used as a nickname
One of the big events that we'd been looking for since deciding to send our kids to their fabulous school this year was the Spring Carnival. As incoming students were invited last year, but obviously we were still down in San Diego. Matt actually did intend to make a special Daddy and daughter trip up with A.J. to attend last year. We were supposed to have had out stuff boxed up on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the week before the Carnival, while it was going to be loaded the following Monday. Peter had baseball so we were going to let A.J. skip dance for a change and get out of the boxed up mayhem to visit with her Dad.
Except then the mover cut the pack-up days back and showed up really late and worked way, way late into Friday so that Matt couldn't actually leave with her on Friday in time to get up for the event. Instead he took her the movies or something.
But so now they were all still wondering all about the big, exciting carnival that they'd heard so much about for another year.
When Carnival weekend came up on us again, they were THRILLED.
To begin with, it was a free dress day at school. This school is super stingy with free dress (and I love it.) They got Halloween dress in costumes, and Free Dress in Compas House colors for the 3 pep rallies and this day for the Carnival and that is literally all for the entire year. Did I mention I love it? The wonderful ease of dressing themselves in the exact same uniform every day makes my mornings so much less stressful.
Although to be fair, they can afford to be so stingy with the free dress days because they award them out as a reward for participation in fundraising efforts and community service projects. Man was I so happy when Peter's class never won. Ha.
Anyway, so in the carnival ran something like 11 am to 4 pm. Peter had his track meet that morning which I went to for a short time before I had to go leave and volunteer at booth from 11-noon. Peter's track meet finished up about 12:30 so we all headed over to the school right about 1:00. I also had a teen from the dance center meet us there to help with the kids. She was fundraising for her summer dance programs, so I thought having her help me out with the kids that afternoon for a few hours would be a nice way for her to earn some money for her dance (without me looking like I was playing favorites and contributing to her and not others) and also allow us to enjoy the carnival better without the stress of us chasing all the kids.
We grabbed lunch and then set the kids off to have fun.
The petting zoo was an absolute favorite.
It was honestly a bit hard to keep track of them. Peter was running wildly and she had the girls so we just kind of went back and forth checking in on them.
There is a lot to do. There's a cake walk, 3 or 4 game booths, a couple bouncy houses, this wipe out style inflatable where you jump across the big red bouncy balls, water balloon wars, the petting zoo, a photo booth, face painting, some jumpy trampoline things and probably more.... but the main attraction running all the way across the fields over everybody's head is the zipline.
A.J. who is generally the more hesitant one is also apparently a thrill seeker and wanted to do the zip-line and she wanted to go with me.
Peter who generally is fearless, probably because he doesn't think things over too clearly, has had a few goes on a roller coaster and made it to the top of a zipline staircase before wanted no part (until the very end when it was too late anyway.) He's fearless but not a thrill seeker. I don't think he appreciates heights all that much.
So I went with A.J., wondering all the while we waited in the line if she would chicken out.
I should really know better.
Funny thing is, the staircase got longer and higher as we climbed. I'm in no way afraid of heights, but it was kind of a spiral stair and it just kept going longer than I expected. I guess I only noticed it because I was wondering about A.J.
She was fine.
We got to the top. The guy hooked our harnesses to the line. I guess I expected him to say something but he didn't. Probably didn't enjoy working the rich kid's private school carnival and thought we were all snobby brats or something. In any case once he clipped us on, he just opened the doors. And then, silly me I expected him to count down or A.J. need some convincing or something but NO.
Before I even really noticed the doors were open she'd already jumped out.
So then I just jumped out after her.
She was smiling and laughing.
And I am of course, a lot heavier and so while she kind of glided delicately to the bottom I came down with a lot bouncing on the wire and went zooming past her and all the way to the end, bouncing waaaaay into the brake pad at the end and then back again as she came and kind of nudged the break area and spun in a circle.
She was giggling and smiling and so so happy. A bit crazy actually. Like one of those full on belly gut laughs with her head flying back and her face turning pink like she needed more air than she was getting.
The guys came and unhooked us.
So that happened.
Never underestimate that child is all.
I don't know why I don't actually know any better yet.
Peter had stood still exactly long enough to watch me and A.J. zipline. Lucy was with the sitter in the petting zoo and Peter kept disappearing over near the middle school kids on the dunking booth and the water balloon cannon wars. I'm so thankful for the caliber of children at this school. Even the middle school kids were kindly putting up with the crazy excited first grader who never had the partner he was supposed to have and who kept trying to take more than the 3 balloons her was allotted per turn.
Face painting before water balloons may have been a silly choice.
A.J. has a go on the trampolines even though she wasn't really big enough to take advantage of the harnesses bungees to flip.
Lucy and the sitter really did keep winding up in the petting zoo. They weren't the only ones. It's hard t argue with baby bunnies and goats, chickens and a pot bellied pig.
Peter was all over the place. Literally. A few of his friends asked me where he was but I didn't know what to tell them. I think he was more interested in doing what HE wanted to do then doing anything that anybody else wanted to do. He says he doesn't have many good friends here, and I'm working on helping him to understand that sometimes, if you want to make better friend ships he's not always going to be able to exactly what he wants to do.
There was another big inflatable obstacle course thing. I suppose it was supposed to be for the older children, but as the afternoon wore on they kind of took it over. It was entertaining watching one of the middle school teachers remind the middle school boys not to be too rough when the younger kids were around and he kept making them wait. Haha. Life lessons.
Lucy did go through a time or too as well, but somebody had to basically lift her over the climbing wall at the beginning so after a few trips Matt made her take a break.
The photo booth was fun too. :)
Just to prove that he was still, and clean at least once during that afternoon.
A.J.'s 3rd Dance Competition this year was in San Jose and was also her first convention. We went up mid-day on Friday as all the soloists were performing that afternoon and evening. It was going to be and interesting weekend actually. For starters, there were only four studios competing there and there only 4 soloists in the Under 8 group competing. Those 4 soloists being A.J. and the 3 other Mini Soloists from our studio. A.J. was up first. So... great. Also, there were no levels at this competition and all dancers were to be judged the same. In other words my 5 year old was going to be held up to the same scoring standards as a 16 or 17 year old. Super fun.
Playing with one of the older girls before hand to relieve her nerves.
As I mentioned A.J. was first up. I felt nervous for her again. I wasn't really looking forward to a repeat of her last emotionally charged (and not in a good way) go of it. I wasn't a fan of her going first.
Also A.J. started her weirdo, mopey, nervous thing again a bit.
I reminded her that she was absolutely the youngest soloists at the competition. I reminded her that she had already done very well at her previous comps and won 2 trophies. I reminded her that she had been crying on stage the last time and still been good enough to place in the overalls. There was just no way of knowing what might happen this time around.
I reminded her that she was 5, and her friends she was against were all 7, 8 and 9. Just based on their ages, they should beat her. They really should and it shouldn't even be a competition. So she should just go out there, give it her all, have fun, and see what happened.
Nothing I was saying was helping.
Finally Ashley told her point blank to knock it off. She took A.J. off to warm up and I was shooed away to wonder what would happen this time around.
Our studio owner, who lives in Hawaii now was visiting the convention with us to check up on her dancers.
She was sitting directly in front of me. That wasn't helping either.
She's this amazing, experienced, well-respected lady with decades of experience. And no matter how lovely and kind she absolutely always is, she intimidates the heck out of me.
I sat in the second row with all the other mini-moms. On the other side of the theater a great number of the bigger girls, the older more experienced dancers who tend to look after, help and mentor my daughter were there. They normally didn't compete anywhere near the time as the little ones, but because all the soloists were that evening, many of them had come down early to watch the littles go.
One of them had A.J.'s stuffed animal with her. She'd promised to watch it for A.J. while she danced. As they announced my baby she and all the other girls screamed like mad for her.
A.J. came out with gusto. She had this swagger thing going. Sass, I guess. She didn't make the middle of the stage for her starting spot, but she was working it so hard that it didn't even matter.
This stupid man behind me said "I didn't know they let them get up there that young."
The music started, she was kind of on fire. She was smiling. She was dancing big. She was really making her every effort to sell her dance. She looked amazing.
Until... I don't know maybe 45 second in, she had a moment. The whole dance went like this :
into, verse, "stupid cupid, stop picking on me"
Another verse "stupid cupid, stop picking on me"
bridge, "stupid cupid, stop picking on me"
end part.....
Okay, so, their were cuts in the song too, but that's the gist of how it went.
And as you may have guessed, every time they music did it's "Stupid cupid" bit, A.J. did the same same dance move. So all year long the memory issues always came for her as she tried to sort out which "Stupid Cupid" she was at and what came next.
This time she did the first one and then just... FROZE.
8 entire beats of the music went by while she stood there, stiff, with her eyes wide and a her mouth in kind of a little shocked expression confused because she could remember what to do.
(For the record, it should have been 4 heel digs, with nice hard stomps in between putting her feet back together.)
Those 8 beats, which lasted just a brief moment lasted an eternity for me. My heart pounded. "Cmon AJ! Cmon AJ! CMON AJ!"
The other girls cheered to encourage her. I'd hear later from Ashley that she was screaming HEEEEEL!!! at A.J. from back stage but the music and the cheers were too loud and A.J. couldn't hear her.
The AWFUL man behind me, clearly unaware she was MY KID, quietly said, "Oh come on, that's enough. Get her off the stage."
But then, just as quickly as she'd forgotten, she remembered. A light flashed in her eyes and with a tremendous grin, RIGHT ON THE MUSIC, she got back in.
The next move after the heel digs was a pivot turn with big sunshine arms. She did it this time with such a flare and lots of hip and flung her pony tail around her as she turned and then off she went with the rest of the dance.
I sunk down in my seat lower and lower and didn't breath again until the final note of the music.
She performed the rest of the dance "perfectly." I include those quotation marks on purpose because no performance can ever be truly perfect but she was as close as I really every could have hoped.
And when she walked off all sassy again she swung her hips so much that I worried a bit her skirt would fly off. (It did not.)
We cheered.
A.J. came to me in the audience and we stayed to watch her friend.
The lady, sitting next to the ridiculously MEAN man behind me touched A.J.'s shoulder and told how cute she'd been.
I exercised a great deal of restraint to not slug that man.
We watched her friends and then eventually I dragged her out of there to get some pictures, get her changed and eventually find dinner.
She was so pleased with herself.
Clearly.
I love it when she's that pleased with her performance.
If you're wondering, she was pulling these poses from her friend's solos.
She loves trying to pose like her older friends. Ha.
When she was done posing we headed for the room to change her clothes, but not before she needed to check out these ballooons.
Once I got her changed we headed to the lobby to get dinner but the elevators were all decorated for our dance conventions and also a gymnastics comp that was going on and I liked this quote.
We grabbed dinner in the lobby. I got sushi and she got chicken and then somebody brought her a milkshake from In and Out, even though I'm not sure sugar was exactly the best decision at that point.
We went back to the theater area to watch more of our studios soloist. A.J. watched a little but mostly ran around with her friends a lot outside in the hall. She was actually having a grand old time. Ordinarily at comps there isn't as much down time, or else people don't hang out as much all at the same hotel but in this case they did and it was wonderful.
I didn't intend to keep her up for awards which weren't until after 9 pm. But she was having such a great time and didn't show any signs of slowing down until maybe 15 minutes before awards anyway so we did stay.
She would up with a High Gold Rating and got 4th of the 4 mini solos. I was worried she'd be sad because the other 3 of her friends all got trophies but she didn't really care. She was just happy with her own performance and happy for her friends as well.
And when she told me that, I'm not kidding, it was the most proud I've ever been to be her mom.
* * * * * * * * * *
The next morning, we met in the lobby to grab breakfast. It was't planned that way, but we wound up running into several other mini company members and so we are together.
Then it was time for the classes. A.J. was in the mini room and only had one convention day with only the morning's worth of classes. All the older company members went off to other rooms to be with other juniors, teens or seniors in class.
I honestly wasn't sure how A.J. would do. She had two friends in the session with her but there were over 3 hours of classes so there was no way of knowing how she'd do.
First up was tap-
The good news is the teacher started out with a bunch of songs A.J. knew well. So while she kept getting pushed to the back, where she maybe couldn't see the teacher's feet well enough, she did have fun.
Between classes. Ha.
Then came hip hop. The choreo was fun but moved really fast. A.J. tried her best but by the end was more interested in practicing her hand stands and cart wheels for awhile.
Then came Musical Theater. The teacher, oh my goodness, had more energy than anybody I've ever met in my lift. A.J. seemed a bit over whelmed by her. But she kept at it an tried her best.
Here is part of the combo they learned. It's an interesting angle, with A.J. on the left between the two teachers.
When it came time for ballet, some of the kids were fading. A.J. was starting to get into it with one of her friends because they kept arguing about who was going to be partners with whom. In the end, I did convince her to get out there and give it a try and she wound up having fun in spite of herself. Good on that amazing teacher really. A.J. was LIVING ballet by the end of that session.
Peek-a-boo plies.
All in.
Here's the dance they worked on.
So sweet.
I was very pleased that A.J. gave it such a solid effort even though it was getting late in her morning and she was kind of over it before hand.
Here she is with the teacher who said she'd noticed the change in
A.J. during class and was quite pleased as well.
Finally, after all of that, it was time for Jazz.
Nobody had to argue with her on that.
So focused.
In particular because the dance they worked on had them acting out animal parts in the beginning and that is RIGHT up A.J.s alley.
Finally, they wrapped things up in the mini room. Every student was called to the stage to get their certificate. They also got to announce their favorite flavor of ice cream on the microphone.
True to form, A.J. ran up on that stage and declared her ice cream with TOTAL confidence.
STRAWBERRY!
It's moments like that, when her confidence and stage presence shines, when the absolute joy she find in dancing shines through that I just I want to tell everybody who's ever questioned our decision to let her perform solos already, and who's tried to imply that I am in some way forcing her to do this to just EAT IT.
:)
The whole group.
* * * * * * * * *
From there, everybody from our studio met up for lunch. A group photo was the first order of business.
Then, for some inexplicable reason, they did one in their best "Hip Hop" pose.
For 5, I'd say A.J.'s is pretty solid.
Then while they ate they did a big sis/little sis gift exchange. Also a great number of the older girls needed to check in with A.J. to ensure she was doing okay. She may have been done with her classes for the day but she still had her group number to perform later.
While she was done dancing, the older girls all still had classes. We'd already had to check out of our room for the night becuase we would finish up and head home early that evening, so we killed tie for awhile first with a cupcake....
And then with a belly dancing scarf.
Eventually, it was time to get ready to perform again. We went back to the room of one of her friends to get ready.
She is starting to insist she can do her own make up.
So far the only thing I will let her work on is her blush.
A.J. insisted on he lipstick kiss photo yet again. It's becoming a time honored tradition.
Ashley took the Minis upstairs to warm up and as they all rode the humongous escalator up it just seemed like such a great visual moment I couldn't help but snap a quick on on my phone.
The minis performed well. It was some really tough competition as there were some very talented groups there from some amazing studios. But they danced practically there best so that was plenty.
A.J. was officially done. Everybody else still had the rest of the group dances to perform or in the very least more classes and the showcase Sunday morning but she was done. To distract her from the sadness of leaving, we hit up the red carpet again for more photos.
It's ridiculous how pleased she was with herself.
We headed out. It was early evening on Saturday afternoon so the traffic was super light. (Normally any time you go between Monterey and anywhere San Jose on a weekend the traffic sucks but we were luckier this time.) And with traffic flowing smoothly, it was only a moment before this happened:
Out like a light.
We got home just in time for dinner. Matt had made BLTs but there wasn't enough bacon so he started to warm up a hot dog for A.J. when suddenly all at once she started freaking out.
BIG FAT tears were rolling down her cheeks between BIG FAT sobs between LONG STRINGS of almost incoherent words that she was stringing together in a long trail listing all the vast injustices of her entire existence.
She didn't WANT a hot dog for dinner she wanted a BLT and it wasn't fair that she had to have a hot dog when BLTs are so much better and everybody else got one except her and also she'd had so much fun at the convention why did she have to come home when everybody else was still there and it wasn't her fault that she was only 5 and everybody else was older, it wasn't her fault she hadn't been born SOONER, she wanted to still be there and why didn't we stay for awards and HOW COME WE NEVER GOT TO USE THE SWIMMING POOL because she really wanted to swim in the swimming pool with all her friends because it would have been so much FUN and everybody else was still there, probably in the pool swimming withOUT her and we needed to go back to the convention so she could swim and dance more and be with her friends and go to awards and what if she never got her pin for PYT and she really LIKES her pins from competition to put on her jacket and she DIDN'T MEAN to lose the one from STARPOWER it was an accident and now I had made her come home and she was never going to get her pin and also she was really really hungry and she didn't want to eat a HOT DOG......
She went on and on like that for awhile between sobs, gasping for air and making a mess of what was left of her make up until literally she was just so pathetic that I couldn't help it and I just started taking pictures of her (which angered her MORE) and she started to turn a bit purple so I hugged her and apologized and said I would eat that darned hot dog and she could have my BLT if she wanted (which honestly is me making a really, really BIG sacrifice for my child) and that calmed her down enough that she was able to eat and take a shower and get her exhausted self to bed.
But not before she asked me really, really nice if maybe, sometime, could we pretty please go to the dance convention again?
