A Nightmare

it was good, it was bad, it was good, it was bad, and now it's exactly what I should have expected.

The kindergarden program was last night. They had the elementary Open House from 5:00-6:30 then the kindergardeners performed at 6:45. It was a jungle theme. Tanner wanted to be an elephant. Most of you know that this was torture for me trying to make a respectable elephant costume. Don't want him to look like a dork, don't own a sewing maching, can't find any place that sells elephant costumes, I have a needle and thread, some foam, felt, super glue and hot glue. Let's see what we can do. Well, I think I got the job done so now it's time. I'm getting Tanner ready, dressed in his grey shirt and sweatpants, and I start to paint his face. Obstacle number one: The face paint that I bought was not grey - it was black. Crap! Good thing it was a multipack which also included white so we mixed and it's turning out OK. Tanner is excited at this point. We're getting ready to go and I'm moving the dogs up to the house. Tanner volunteers to move Cookie, which is great, but when he takes her rope off the pole to bring her up to the house she takes off running, knocking Tanner down and dragging him behind her. Tanner is now upset, filthy dirty, and crying. YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!


This would be Tanner now pouting and refusing to talk to me and CJ. Great. I try and console him and tell him every elephant is dirty, that's how they cool themselves by throwing dirt on their back. It's not really working. But we're off anyway. When we get to the school he perks up a bit. He sees the other kids dressed up and we go to his classroom and look at all his stuff. The world is right now. It's time to meet in the music room. We take him there, help him get his costume on, and go find a seat. When they bring them out there's Tanner - front row, center stage!!!! I'm so excited. I'm trying to take pictures and I notice that Tanner is not doing any of the moves the rest of the kids are doing. He's just standing there with his head down, hands in his pockets, and he keeps messing with his costume. (Mind you at home he was singing and dancing and he was SO excited) His ears keep sliding down because he's hanging his head and the headband is falling forward. Now, I'm about to have a meltdown because I think Tanner is embarrassed because his costume isn't staying on right. I'm dying inside because I feel like I didn't do a good enough job on his costume to make sure it fit right and was secure and now I've caused him to be embarrassed in front of his friends.

After a few more minutes Tanner is crying, taking off his stuff and leaving the stage. Oh, my gosh! I go to him. I give him a hug tell him it's OK, we can fix it and he can go back. He doesn't want to. Another teacher and myself are trying to console him and encourage him but there is no way he is going back on that stage. He won't talk to me, nothing.

Eventually he tells me that he was embarrassed because of all the people. Then the light clicks in my head - duh. What was I thinking? Tanner - my I wanna do it, no I don't, yes I do, no I don't, leary of all things new son - was placed at center stage in the front row. What were they thinking? I'll tell you what they were thinking, the teacher told me they put him there on purpose because he was so CUTE! (validation for me that I did an OK job on his costume, but they obviously didn't know what they were doing to him) We sat through the rest of the performance - by the way, this all happened during the first song. And, at least Morgan got to enjoy the costume too.

He did say again this morning that he only likes regular stages. I guess that means ones without people sitting in front of them. I'm again relieved that it wasn't me that caused the problem. I did still have a mini meltdown last night after he went to bed. I certainly don't ever want something I did or didn't do to be the cause of failure or embarrassment for my children. That was the worst feeling of all. To think that I was the cause of it.