A few days before Alexa's first ballet recital, I came down with the flu. The day of her performance my fever was 101. I felt soooooo miserable. I had planned on helping Alexa into her costume and on the stage, but I asked my mom if she would do it for me. Just the thought of standing up left me in tears. I told myself I'd just do my best to get to the auditorium, park myself into a seat, and at least see the performances.
My mom was able to dress her, but then when the rest of the girls went to the balcony to watch the opening dances and wait for their turn to perform, Alexa started to break down. I dragged myself out of my seat and took over. I wound up spending the rest of the evening, about two hours, changing her, waiting with her, and coaxing her onstage. I really couldn't have done it without God's strength.
Alexa has always seemd to like getting up onstage. She had already been in four onstage performances, and she seemed excited about this recital, too, so I didn't think there would be a problem. But she had to sit in her costume for over an hour before going onstage. By this time it was 4:15, and I think she was just tired. Plus, a few days later she had a high fever, so she was probably sick at the time, too.
So, when it was time for her group to go on stage, she hid under a table and screamed, "I'm not going on stage. You can't make me." Now, I definitely didn't want to force her to go on stage, but we had paid $100 for this night, and it was hard to resign myself to the fact that we might not even see her onstage at all.
All the girls started walking up the stairs, and we were all alone. I finally coaxed her out from under the table and hugged her. I wiped her tears and told her I was proud of her whether or not she went on the stage. Then a woman walked into the room and saw Alexa was still down in the dresssing room. She noticed Alexa was upset, and she asked Alexa if she would at least want to watch the dance from the side. Alexa said yes.
We walked up the stairs to the side of the stage next to the curtain. When it was time for her group to go onstage, the girls started walking out, and her dance teacher (who was with them onstage for the entire dance) saw Alexa was standing there and grabbed her hand. Alexa just sort of followed her, looking back at me with this funny look on her face like, "I wasn't going to go onstage!" She didn't really dance at all, just stood next to her dance teacher the entire time, but she didn't have a meltdown or even cry.
The picture at the top of the post is of her first dance. She is supposed to be a gingerbread cookie (there is a gingerbread face hood attached to the jacket). Later in the dance, they took off the jacket and turned into princesses.
The crazy thing is twenty minutes later she had a second dance where she was dressed up as Roudloph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and she was actually asking when it would be her turn to go onstage again! She did a little more dancing that time, although I had to stand off to the side of the stage and couldn't see very well.
I wish I would have had better pictures to post of these dances, but hopefully you can get somewhat of an idea of what the night was like.
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