Meera’s Ballet Show

Last night was Meera’s end-of-year ballet show. The culmination of 9 months of Saturday morning ballet classes. It felt like a massively monumental day for our family– the end-marker proving that we had somehow managed to get through an entire school year of ballet classes for Meera. The 30-minute early Saturday morning drive each way to-and-from her class was KILLER, and the wrench the ballet classes often threw into our weekend planning was a royal pain in the rear, but we stuck it out, and we pulled through, making finishing the year of ballet a major achievement for us all. And after a whole year of Meera cheering on her brothers from the sidelines of their (many) sporting events, it was payback time (big time!)~~

I took the boys to get the roses. They came to understand this ritual in the only way they know how: with a sports analogy– “Giving flowers to a Ballerina is like giving trophies to a Sports Star” they told the guy behind the florist desk. “Yes, that’s right,” he said to them, “but girls like flowers anytime– especially roses– and the earlier you boys learn that, the better.” And so, Kyle and Owen had their first lesson in Flower Giving. But still, they were pretty unsure about the whole thing. They really thought Meera should be receiving a trophy, “or at least a medal” Kyle said, “or a ribbon or something,” Owen said. That was all until we arrived at the show venue. And there they saw that just about every single family had flowers for their girl. And then, they were very happy that they had those gorgeous big bunches of pink roses in their hands. {And the Most Important Rule of Life was re-affirmed once again: Mama knows best. 😉 And of course I made sure I pointed that out to them a few times.}

I also had to point out to them — more than a few times — that yes, this whole Ballet Show thing is not really their style, and yes it is extremely long, and yes, it is hard to sit through, but YOUR SISTER HAS SPENT THE PAST YEAR SITTING THROUGH YOUR SPORTS SO YOU WILL DO THIS WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AND YOU WILL DO IT WELL AND YOU WILL NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT IT FOR EVEN ONE SECOND. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Yes, it was payback time. Payback time in a big, big way. The show was a ballet rendition of The Little Engine that Could. It was 3 hours long. And Meera’s class appeared on the stage for 1 minute and 48 seconds of it (Braydon timed it). No joke.

But we did it. They did it. Those big brothers sat through the entire 3 hour thing, with only one 15-minute intermission. And they learned some important stuff along the way… like, classical ballets do not have words, and ballet productions are long, and people don’t clap along to the music, and they learned what it is like to sit on the sidelines — for real — finally. And they learned what it is to have a whole entire show/performance/audience/evening be all about someone else… someone else with entirely different interests than their own, and someone else who really needed to be in the spotlight for a moment doing her own thing. And our boys did a good job of it. And Meera was ridiculously cute for her 1 minute and 48 seconds on the stage. And when that show was over, we had one proud ballerina on our hands. (And two proud big brothers.)

(And two proud parents.)

It was a good, albeit long, night for the J-Ms.

And then we headed home, stopping on the way for ice cream (which, despite her love of, and appreciation for, the pink roses, is what Meera really wanted to do to celebrate)…

…and sitting right where she wanted (on Owen’s lap), eating ice cream (her favorite: vanilla with rainbow sprinkles), things resumed to normalcy and we found our balance again– with costumes off and classical ballet productions behind us we quickly got right back to the usual business of making messes, elbowing brothers in the gut, cracking dumb jokes, etc.

And then our ballerina promptly fell asleep in the car on the ride home, and didn’t wake up again until the next morning.

And upon waking up she found that her roses were all arranged in a big vase in the center of the kitchen table, and the big show was finally behind us, and life was chugging along on forward. It was good to wake up to.

If I had to venture a guess I’d bet that we won’t be sitting through any more ballet school shows in the future. What we learned this year was that while Meera liked ballet well enough, what Meera really loved (and what we all needed) was to have something — something real and legitimate and substantial and requiring us all to cooperate and coordinate — that was just for her. I don’t think ballet is our thing (or hers). But I can assure you, there will always be some thing that is Meera’s thing. I will make sure of it. And I’ll also be sure that we’ll all rally around our girl when it is her moment on the stage. What I hope Meera learned this year, more than anything about ballet, is that she’s got a very strong family behind her.

“I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I know I can.”

― Little Engine That Could