The lass had her “Big Show” yesterday. It’s a little recital that her dance teacher has her kids do for their last class. She’s done 3 of these before so she’s a seasoned veteran of Big Shows. She was very excited for this one and decided that she needed a little something extra.
So she decided to apply her own lipstick. The Wife was interrupted upstairs by the cheery exclamation “Mom, I put lipstick on for my Big Show!” She turned around to see a 3 foot tall clown. Miraculously, the lipstick was only around her lips and not all over her face, arms, hands and clothes.
Her show was, well, a performance. Most of the girls were new. As a result, only a couple of them actually remembered to watch the teacher coax them through their performance. The lass was one of them, after a bit of a rocky start.
The boy, for his part, sat quietly through his sister’s performance. Unfortunately, he started getting exteremely antsy when it was over. The whining started then as well so I decided it was time to remove him from the class room before a scene developed with him at the center of it. Never underestimate the power of “attention,” or the lack thereof, to dominate a child’s psychy.
Unfortunately, removing him didn’t work out to well.
Now, his sister was in sole possession of the Wife’s attention, and he just couldn’t quite reconcile that situation. He slowly deteriorated to the point that I had to take him out to the car. Every step of the way he promised he’d stop. He never did. I calmly explained to him while he sat in tears in the car that the morning was about his sister and not him. That there would be other days that would be his day and about him. That he should have been happy for his sister getting a chance to show of her dancing for Mom since Mom only gets to see that once in a while.
Shortly thereafter the Wife and a jubilant lass came out to the car. She chattered excitedly about her dancing and if the Wife and I liked it, which of course we did. Kids need to hear those things at that age. The boy continued to try and one-up his sister, but the Wife and I ignored his comments, continuing to talk to the lass about her performance and her next class.
Finally, the boy settled down and thought about things the rest of the ride home. We’ll see if any lessons were learned the next time.