This picture is of Catie with her drama director at the big, end-of-the-year play this past Saturday. Just wanted to clarify that since, with the post title, it may seem like this was a picture of me, Catie’s mama.
For the record, her play, The Buccaneers, was a hit. Catie delivered her lines in the right places, she ad-libbed, and got into her Gypsy character beautifully. As they say, she “broke a leg” up there on stage.
But let me tell you, for this mama, the big play has been the least of the drama.
Is it only my kids who have to have SO MUCH DRAMA about each of their activities?
For the First Three Meetings of Swim Team, Girl Scouts, Tball, TaeKwonDo, ballet, gymnastics, you name it:
“I LOVE this new activity! This is the only thing I ever want to do as long as I live. I will be a gymnast/Olympic swimmer/ballerina/actress/Astros player FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Please, mama, sign a contract for the next TEN YEARS! This is the only thing I ever want to do!”
And then…
The following nine months of the activity:
“Ughhhhhh. Why are you FORCING me to do this? It’s awful. I hate it. Why is this activity EVERY WEEK? I have no time to do anything ever because you’re always making me go to this horrible practice that I NEVER EVEN WANTED TO DO.”
To be clear, the activites are never my idea. I’m not a joiner. As a kid, I was not an activity-quitter, I was an activity avoider. Really, I have little interest in my kids doing a million activities.
But my children are teases. They see the sparkle in the eyes of their friends, who LOVE activities, and they want that too. They promise to commit to the season; they are adamant that they will not complain about practices. They act desperate to PLEASE, can we JUST DO SOME FUN ACTIVITIES LIKE OUR FRIENDS?
Until, like I mentioned, the practice comes at a time when they would rather by playing ice cream shop in the park with their friends. Then, they wonder, why in the WORLD does my mom love to drag me to activities?
And the drama begins.
So, even though Catie loved drama for the first couple months, her passion faded. By production time this weekend, she was SO OVER another year of it. I was SO OVER making her go every week.
As the little actors and actresses took their final bows on stage, M and I applauded loudly for Catie’s bravery, hard work, and dedication. We also applauded that there would be no more drama trying to get our little actress to drama.
Until I looked over at Sam and Elisabeth, who has stars in their eyes as they stared at Catie on that stage.
And they both leaned over to proclaim, “I REALLY WANT TO START DOING DRAMA! PLEASE??!”
