the bug

Last night was the big recital, and Caroline was buzzing before, during, and after. On the way in, a videographer filming for the ripoff official DVD of the performance asked if he could film her in action on the way to the dressing room. This flipped some sort of switch in her, and she suddenly became Caroline, the Performer.

Her class (the Dancing Poodles) did their routine as you'd expect a group of preschoolers to perform. One stood and screamed the words, but did not dance. One checked out her nails the entire time. The best dancer remembered the most and nudged others to follow her. One was the cruise director who kept prompting the others to fix their spacing. And our little dancing poodle was at the end of the line doing 50% actual choreographed steps and 50% fanciful twirls and flamboyant pliés and bows.

She led a line around the stage for a musical interlude, and all the little girls stopped to admire the backdrop that wasn't in place for their dress rehearsal. The audience cheered and laughed. This kicked them all into hypercute overdrive for the last few moments of the dance.

When they hit their final pose, the crowd gave ample aws and cheers. Caroline starting jumping up and down in place and clapping along.

When I walked into the dressing room to retrieve her, she ran up to me and said, "I know I say this all the time, but it really was the BEST! DAY! EVER!"

I told her she did a great job and the group really remembered a lot more than they had at the rehearsal (which is a low bar to set, believe me). I said I was proud of them all.

"Yeah, it was great, right? I didn't want to leave the stage! And I don't know if you saw me clap, but I even had to give myself a little applause. I just couldn't help it."