Elves, Ears and Dreams Come True.....

Elves

Every day last week seemed to belong to Margo Dean and the Ballet Concerto Company as rehearsals started on Sunday and ended with a 3rd performance on Friday night. Julia’s class, chosen to be elves, was the youngest to be included in the original ballet written and choreographed by Mrs. Dean. I had been witness to the jolly steps of the routine all over our house, but none of those private performances compared to Julia decked in all of the elf “get-up” doing those same little dances. The shoes, the hat, the green glitter eye shadow, the exaggerated eyebrows...........oh my. All she needed was a wooden toy and a little hammer in her hand. Almost every performance, her class of elves sat side stage and watched the ballet. The beauty and grace of the professionals and older students of the studio captivated them Thursday morning, Friday morning and Friday night. Julia didn’t want to miss any of the ballet, any time it was performed. As I sat in the audience Friday night, I understood. It was lovely from start to finish, although I enjoyed my elf the most.

Ears

On Saturday, we crossed a milestone. After much deliberating, we allowed Julia to have her ears pierced. Somehow over the last few months, Jeff and I reported different ages to her regarding when she could get her ears pierced. Nikki’s daughter, Atlee, was getting hers pierced for her birthday so Nikki, TJ and I thought it would be a fun memory for them to do it altogether. With that in mind, the memory was more important to me than the age I had chosen. My Mom was coming in town and she happens to have the “guns” to do ear piercings for the drugstore. Timing was perfect. We planned a secret piercing party at Nik’s house Saturday at 4 and it was a surprise in every way.

Here are their faces when we told them.

Julia and Basden couldn’t hold back the giggles and Atlee was very tentative.

Julia shocked me by offering to go first not knowing it was about to be the longest 15 minutes of her life. She sat in the tall chair as we all hovered around her trying to figure out the “guns” (we had two so we could do both ears at the same time), cleaning her ears, admitting how nervous we were, practicing our “aims” so we made sure we didn’t “get them in crooked”, dropping the tiny earrings on the floor.................she finally burst into tears to release the stress. Using the word "gun" didn't help, I am sure. Standing behind Julia with his hands on head and shoulders, Jeff loudly, only because there was SO much commotion, reminded us that our “patient” was sitting right here and we needed to show a little confidence. Yes sir. I was a mess on the inside. I remembered how much it hurt. My Mom never was successful at piercing mine. She finally did it while I slept. I was nervous for Julia. I was nervous that I might “shoot” crooked or too low. What if she twitched and the gun got stuck? When Tj and I were finally aimed and ready, Julia announced, “I want Nanna to do it!!!” I’ve never moved so fast in my life- neither had Nanna. Mom hopped up there and took over like she hadn’t taken a 15 year hiatus from piercing ears. 1-2-3 pop! Done. Tears. A look in the mirror and a big grin.

We did a little better on Basden. Jeff said he was shocked she went through with it after all the talk of crooked holes and the puncturing wind pipes. Mom gave me the gun back and TJ and I did the 1-2-3............pop..3.....3....pop on Basden. Tears and then the magic mirror.

Atlee wanted no part of it. Jeff said she was the smartest one in the whole bunch.

Dreams Come True

A few weeks ago, Brighton was looking through one of his Curious George books for the thousandth time, he came from behind and asked, “Mom, will we EVER get to do this?” Not turning around, “What, sweetheart?” “This!” Moving around to the front, he held the book high opened to a very festive page. It was George and the Man in the Yellow Hat riding in a decorated horse drawn sleigh. The sleigh was decorated for Christmas and the snow had covered the ground. I stared for a minute, thinking to myself, now SOME of that might be possible. “It looks really fun, Mom. Do you think we will, EVER?” I smiled and said, “I hope so, B. I think it looks really fun too.” I made a plan.

After the “piercing party”, we dashed downtown to catch our one-horse open sleigh............ well, carriage. It’s Texas. We had kept it a secret until we were about to climb into our carriage. He was practically speechless. First, he had to clarify that we were actually going to ride and not just sit in it for a minute, then every few minutes he would break his awed silence and say something like, “This is SO fun!!”, “I LOVE this!”, “Look at that!”, “I can’t believe we are doing this!” and my favorite, of course, "You are the best Momma ever!" My left arm would get a squeeze from time to time but he was relatively quiet as he took it all in.

There’s one more dream coming true this Christmas at the Sanders’ house.............stay tuned. All 4 of you.