The Nutcracker

Today Ella, Ben, Nana, and I all went to see "The Nutcracker". What a great way to get into the holiday spirit. It was so much fun to go to the ballet. It was a special show just for kids. They shortened it to only an hour which was the perfect about of time for little children to sit still. Actually, Ben could have settled for a 45 minute show as he was pretty squirmy the last 15 minutes. Ella was hypnotized. She didn't hardly move a muscle and looked like a statue most of the show. She was so taken with all those ballerinas twirling around on stage. She loved all the beautiful colors and the snow the slowly fell from the "sky".

If you know the story of "The Nutcracker", you know that the Nutcracker comes to life at the stroke of midnight and Clara is awakened. Shortly after, the Mouse King comes on stage and he and the Nutcracker dual it out with the victory going to the Nutcracker. I was a little worried about this part of the story as I have a very sensitve little 4 year old and a 2 year old who is an even bigger chicken than his sister. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle this part of the story and was hoping that since it was a "children's version" that it would be tamed down enough to suit Ella. As I thought about the show earlier in the week, I hoped I hadn't wasted all of this money on tickets only to have to leave the show early due to a clinging, crying pair of children.

My fears were not calmed any by what took place in our house on Wednesday night. Upon returning home from Awana, Ella and I saw that Daddy and Ben had found the "Cars" movie on tv. Our kids never watch movies and are only accustomed to Elmo. We had heard that there wasn't anything to worry about in this movie so I told Ella that she could go and watch it for a little bit with them. About 10 minutes later, I heard the pitter patter of little feet. Ella had decided to come back upstairs and hang with me. I asked her why she wasn't watching the movie, she replied "Well...it's kind of scary...I don't want to watch it anymore." I probed a little and asked what had scared her. Ella said "I didn't really like it when the car got sprayed with mud." "Oh" was all I could say. Talk about scary stuff!! (Insert look of amazement) I sat there puzzled that something as silly as that could cause her to not even want to watch anymore of it. I kept thinking to myself that we may very well have to leave the ballet early if my daughter is seriously scared of mud.

I woke up early this morning partly excited and partly nervous, not being sure how the morning would play out. I had come up with an escape plan if one needed to be used. We got to the ballet, found our seats and started watching. Much to my delight, they had taken out the Mouse King all-together. There wasn't one scary thing in it...or any mud flinging of any sort. Thank Goodness. It was a success.

When we got home, Ella was inspired! She wanted her tutu skirt on and her hair put into a bun like the ballerinas. She pranced and twirled all around the living room yelling "look at me Mommy!" ...Ben liked it too, but not enough to wear a tutu and twirl!