All That Jazz

This girl of mine loves to dance. She's been enjoying Ballet for years but this year she really wanted to give Jazz & Tap a whirl.

My only hesitation on signing her up was that it involved an Eisteddfod halfway through the year and this word alone conjured up an image where tears, tantrums and all manner of bad behaviour reigned supreme and this was only from the uber-competitive Mothers! I think I saw an episode on a US Talk Show some 10 years ago about "Stage Mothers" and it has had a rather negative effect on my view of the dance world ever since.

But I needn't have worried. I chatted to friends and her teacher, put my own fears aside and she has been absolutely loving it. So much so that our home has slowly become one big dance floor as she Jete's up the hallway, does jump splits every time she enters the living room and saunters up and down the galley kitchen with a few tap-shuffles and ball-changes a la Ginger Rogers.

As parents, you really have no idea what the girls actually get up to in class because it's not a spectator sport. It's a bit secretive and you have to wait until the mid-year Eisteddfod to see what your daughter has been up to the last 6 months.

So last week was that moment. Her group performed 3 routines in the Eisteddfod - a Song and Dance number, a Tap number and a Jazz number. It was brilliant! I was absolutely amazed at how much she had learnt and how well she performed. I felt every emotion as I sat in the audience. I was felt nervous waiting for her to come onto the stage, had a big smile across my face as she did her routines and I may have shed a little tear at the end as I was completely overcome with pride. Watching your little ones perform or indulge in their passions is one of life's greatest joys I think.

In fact I was so fixated on watching her and only her that I couldn't even tell how well her group did. Apparently they did really really well, scoring a Highly Commended for their Song and Dance, 2nd place for their Jazz and First place for their Tap. Icing on the cake.

So I survived my first Eisteddfod. I'm quite proud of my attempts in the hair department and only had to do 5 minutes worth of hand-sewing on some final touches on the costumes. It was really quite painless. No scary Mothers or scary Offspring. In fact the only stressful thing about the Eisteddfod was getting 5 Kids out the door by 9am and then trying to keep 4 busy little boys entertained for the hours until her routines were on. But they too loved watching their big sister on the stage so all that waiting around for the 3 minutes of glory was worth it on all counts. Once a year? Yes, I think I can handle that.