The Dancing Queen (or Princess at the Very Least)!

I am going to take a momentary pause in the Nolan-centric posts to focus on little Bailey. As I mentioned at the end of the last post, Bailey danced in her first recital. I was so nervous, but she really surprised me...in a good way! While 3 and 4-year-olds aren't typically the most coordinated, I think she did as well as any of the little girls. As I've told a number of people, the funniest part of watching pre-school dances is their complete inability to nonchalantly find their place on the stage. From the moment I saw the top of Bailey's head emerge from the wing, I could tell she was completely preoccupied with finding her "star." Now, for some kids, this search took literally the whole dance....once they found their place, the dance was pretty much over. For others, the star quest led to some spats between dancers who each thought they were on the right star...it was just the same one and they quickly realized it was a first come, first served kind of deal.


They wouldn't let us take pictures during the actual dances, which was okay in the long run because I wouldn't have been able to get any good shots what with the streaming tears clouding my vision and all. What is with me these days? It's like I can't handle all of these new little life things that Bailey is going through...and it's just going to get worse (for me, not for her) as time goes by. But, I digress...


Jason got good video. Again, someday I'll learn how to post video here. The setup to the pictures is that the pre-school show was called, "Once Upon A Time..." and all of the classes were Disney Princesses. Now, I have to say that, when we learned our class was going to be Mulan, we were less than thrilled. Bailey hadn't even seen the movie. I tried to get her to watch it, but the minute Mulan cut off her hair and pretended to be a boy, Bailey was out. That kind of behavior is not at ALL princess-like for a 3-year-old. But, I think we ended up with the better deal. Our costume was so cute and very different from the other ones. While still cute, the Cinderellas and Sleeping Beauties kind of looked like the generic Halloween costumes you can buy at Wal-Mart.


Anyway, they entered the stage with their hands in a Chinese prayer pose in front of them, walking on their tiptoes to their place. Soooo cute. Here are the pictures. I realized at the end of the night that I didn't get a good picture of her with her shoes and tutu on...but she'd already messed up her hair and her makeup was all rubbed off. But, by golly, I have the picture!!! We'll go chronologically, however....here we go with the pictures I took when we were getting ready to leave for the recital.

Backstage after the recital....it was truly an operation to keep 100 pre-schoolers occupied and prepared for their next dance without their parents to assist them with shoe changes and whatnot.

She was so proud of the ribbon she got from her teacher at the end of the recital!

Cousin Anna and family came to see Bailey's big debut.

Not the best form but, hey, she's only 3!