May might be the busiest month of the year. That used to be December, but everyone seems to know December is insane and doesn’t schedule anything superfluous.
May has sneaky busy-ness. It’s the end of spring sports, the start of summer sports, end-of-the-year competitions, final recitals, and SO MANY school projects. Jen Hatmaker describes the project hell of May here. It’s so funny and so true.
Our first Saturday this May was jam-packed. It began with Nate’s soccer game, then a dress rehearsal for Elisabeth’s ballet recital, next a gymnastics performance for Elisabeth and Catie, then a science fair project for Catie, and finally Elisabeth’s big end-of-the-year recital. Not to mention, grandparents were in town for all of it. Yea! So busy and so insane.
Everyone had a big chance to show-off for the grandparents. Except Sam. He was scheduled to be the spectator at all of it. Only that didn’t exactly happen….
Here’s the pictorial guide to our day, before Sam stole the proverbial show from everyone.
While Mike and the boys were at Nate’s soccer game, I was at Elisabeth’s dress rehearsal. The best picture I have from the game is one a friend snapped of Nate hand-in-hand with her cute daughter.
Elisabeth’s dress rehearsal went fine–except one tense moment when she face-planted on the stage during her tap number. But she recovered nicely and bounced right back up to continue dancing The Locomotion. (My apologies for getting that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.). Mostly she was thrilled for the hair and make-up portion of the recital. Fun fact: ALL little girls are thrilled for the hair and make-up portion of recitals. 
After lunch we were off to the girls’ gymnastics show. They flipped and flopped and cartwheeled all over the place. Here they are doing…well…I’m not actually sure what gymnastics move this is. Since gymnastics recitals don’t involve complicated hair or make-up, the gym gives out trophies to entice gymnasts to participate.
Next, Elisabeth got back into her fancy hair and make-up for her big show. By now, Sam had pretty much had it with sitting in the audience watching his siblings perform. As about 1,500 people waited for the recital to start, the owner of the studio, Ms. Kathleen, announced we would have pre-show entertainment. She asked if three volunteers would come up to the stage.
The invitation was barely out of her mouth before Sam was running down the long aisle to the stage. Once there he joined two other kids who had also volunteered to be the entertainment. Ms. Kathleen announced they would be having a hula-hoop competition.
Our family does not have the hula-hoop gene so this was not good news for Sam. If hula-hooping involves swinging your hips, the Hergenraders sort of gyrate in weird, twerky motions. It looked like the second Hergenrader of the day was about to face-plant on that stage.
But Sam had heard the word contest, and he was determined to win a trophy or medal of his own. The music started and Sam hula-hooped with more ferocious energy than I’ve ever seen. Imagine a meth addict dancing. Now imagine a meth addict on speed and dancing. This is sort of how Sam was hula-hooping. The whole auditorium was cheering for him. Mike and I were laughing so hard we were crying.
When Ms. Kathleen announced the contest was over, she handed Sam a pair of kids’ medium sweatpants from the dance studio. For one tense moment, I thought he was going to hand them back and ask if they had something a little better. Maybe a wii? A water gun? He had hula-hooped his heart out for a prize. Not sweatpants to give his mom or sister.
But the show must go on, and tonight’s show was actually these ballerinas…
Once we were home, and the kids were in bed, Mike and I fell onto the couch. He had a beer and I was wearing the too-tight sweatpants Sam had earned for me. As far as Saturdays in May go, this had been a good one. Our family had collected memories, confidence, good times, trophies, pictures….
…and a pair of really small, hard-earned sweatpants.
