Cirque Du Soliel

On Sunday May 2 we went with Lawr's parents and the two girls to CIrque du Soliel's Kooza.

I've mentioned Lily's (so by default Addie's) love of Cirque after getting to go to a show as a 3 year old when she filled in as daddy's date when I skipped out for Nichole's bachelorette party. I've told you how they practice and practice, and that Lily says that's what she wants to be when she grows up. This year she had a "dress up like what you want to be when you grow up: day at school, and she dressed up like an "actor-bat". Or the best that mommy could come up with anyway.

So when Grandma and Grandpa decided to take us all to a performance the day after they arrived last week (now that I'm posting this so late, 3 weeks ago), the girls were so excited, especially Lily. And as luck would have it, we had the preschool classroom beaver, Elliot, so he got to come to, and we got to write all about it!
Daddy hurt his shoulder a few weeks ago, so we didn't get to practice the way she wanted to.

About 6 months ago, she said, "Daddy, but how will you get me on stage, will you just lift me up there?" He said, "Don't you think you need to practice with them first, before you perform together?" She didn't think so, she wanted him to just lift her on up and she'd show them what she had.

Because of that conversation, I was a little apprehensive about the show. These tickets were not cheap. Addie has never sat through even a movie before, and I just wasn't sure how it was going to go down with Lily, if she might have expectations of getting up on the stage. The last thing I wanted was this huge treat to be a letdown for her.
Everything aligned because we had a fabulous night. She did wish they chose her for an audience volunteer, but decided that they were mostly "only picking grownups". Addie sat on Lawrence's lap snacking most of her way through the show, eyes glued. A few times she wanted to sit with her grandpa too. Elliot only got stuck to some spilled soda under the seat once or twice, and we remembered him when we left, SUCCESS!. Lily talked THE ENTIRE TIME. Lily is a talker anyway (where does she get that from!?), but she honestly just had a running commentary going throughout. "Why is he doing that, where is she going, wow that's high, do you think they are married, why is that light red, how did that stay up there", etc, etc, etc. She had something to say about every move anyone made, whether it was too dark, too loud, too cool, too many hula hoops, too werid, you name it. For a a while I thought we were reading Old Hat, New Hat! :)

There was a girl in front of her, maybe 12 or so who was there with her mom. They both looked back at Lily the first 3 minutes or so at every comment. I could tell they were slightly annoyed, and I thought about shhhhhing Lil, but this wasn't exactly a quiet show, it was interactive, lots of talking and laughing. Plus there was an entire Jr High soccer team behind us, and if you think they were silent, think again. So instead, I decided to let the girls in front of us be annoyed, I answered Lily's questions and only a few times did I say, let's be quiet for a while and see what happens. She kept talking and I just didn't answer. I was proud of myself for this because sometimes I stifle her in order to be polite to others, but that Sunday, I decided to be polite to my little girl instead, and that felt good. That girl in front of us probably looked back over 100 times. At one point, I leaned over and whispered to Lawrence, "imagine Lily accidentally gets her sucker in that girls hair". :)

The show was great, and I was so pleased with how my girlies did. They loved it.

As the show ended, I got the pit in my stomach that it was Sunday already and it was the end of a weekend, our time together was almost up and we'd have a week of rushing around to get through before getting another quality weekend. The good news was, Grandma and Grandpa were here from NJ so they had a week of quality time with them to look forward to instead.

During the whole performance you could see her little mind working, thinking of new tricks that she and daddy could try. If his shoulder would ever get better!

KOOZA!