The Nutcracker

The week of the Nutcracker was insane around here. They have rehearsals every night that week, so I expected it to be a bit crazy. But, that was combined with Marin's volleyball games and the last week of school for Marin and Bennett. And, then there was the stomach bug. It marched pretty slowly thru our family. Reese had it first. 8 days later Marin had it. Then, thinking/hoping we were in the clear, 4 days later, Bennett woke up vomiting at 4 am the MORNING of The Nutcracker. Help me. It was horrible. They normally have 2 performances, but because of a location change (that was well worth it) they only had 1 performance this year. She got in bed with me and her first question was.....does this mean I can't do nutcracker? A moment in parenting I don't care to ever repeat. I told her no. Because, at that point, I thought that of course there wasn't even a chance of it. The other girls had had it and stayed vomit-y for almost an entire 12-15 hours and then were not fully over it for 2-3 days. But, she is my Bennett. She has a remarkably/almost scary high tolerance of pain. That combined w/ my mom's almost iron stomach....she rarely suffers w/ stomach bugs as much as the rest of us. All that to say.....she only got sick one more time. I basically refused to let her have water and food all day....and called and got permission for her to miss all rehearsals that day and just show up for the performance. She kept telling me she felt great. And, she really seemed to. I had been praying for WEEKS about the health of this child during the Nutcracker.....
Anyway - all that to say. She did it. So thankful. I pretty much didn't breathe thru the entire first Act until I finally saw her happily on stage during the second Act.

Some good friends of ours took these pictures and shared them with us. The are so priceless to me. (the friends and the pictures)

In January we can check the costume out and go get photos taken in it. So, I guess I'll get to do Bon-Bon hair again then. :-) The rest of the story is that Cody's Aunt and Uncle were in town to see the ballet. Afterward, we all went to Logan's for dinner. We let Bennett drink a bit too much water and about half way thru her dinner she looked at me and told me she needed to throw up. Thus began a race across Logan's to get to the restroom. Thankfully, she made it. However, she and I both will be needing new boots......but at least we were technically IN the restroom.