It’s Dance Recital Week. Which means last night was rehearsal night #1. Thursday is recital #1. Friday is rehearsal night #2. Saturday is the performance for all three of them. Nothing I like doing more on warm sunny Friday evenings in the spring than going to dance recitals. Then again, I have three girls so it’s not like I had plans for something else. Yesterday was also supposed to be a field trip to a local pool, I mean Aquatic Center, for Kinz and Rye. But it was 57 degrees and it rained. So it was rescheduled for tomorrow. Plus they both have different field trips on Friday too.
This is a lot for us to remember. Plus, when I was born, the Kansas City Chiefs were the world champs. So I’m getting pretty old too.
I should just ask Kinsey if we’ll make it through because she can evidently see the future.
I’m not kidding. Her future seeing powers haven’t been fully revealed yet but from what I have deduced through my Dadtastic powers of observation and exaggeration of my children’s abilities, she can really do this.
I think it’s more Nicholas Cage in Next rather than the Precogs in Minority Report.
Anyway, yesterday we had Kinsey’s rehearsal from 5:00 to 6:15. Riley’s is from 6:45 to 8:15. And there is no way, after last year\'s experience, that I’m staying in an auditorium for 3 hours with all three girls. Luckily, for the first time in about three years, Mom’s job did not suspiciously take her out of town during dance recital rehearsal week.
Our plan this year? I take Kinz and Mom takes Rye. Awesome in its simplicity and fairness. However it also means our logistics are dependent on the rehearsal staying on time. This is a significant risk. Not like MacArthur’s landing at Inchon or casting Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist, but significant nonetheless. The plan was for Kinz and I to get home with just enough time to tag Mom and Rye on their way out the door.
In an upset of the US over the Soviets in 1980 proportions, I delivered Kinz to the rehearsal with 10 minutes to spare. She was able to change into her costume and walk into the auditorium. This is a distinct change from our usual entrance which consists of running, whining and confusion. They were behind schedule a tad bit too. Unfortunately, this provided enough time for Kinsey to realize that the other girls in her dance class had put their tights on while she did not. It also allowed her to observe that the other girls, except one, all had their hair done into the performance-required buns complete with the required hair piece all enhanced by make-up.
Unfortunately for Kinsey and the other girl, they both had their Dads with them. All the other girls had their Moms. And most of these Moms had Batman’s utility belt stocked with make-up. I swear one of them had Chewbacca’s bandolier with various shades of eye-liner, etc.
“Dad, you have to put the hair thing in.”
“Sorry kiddo, I have no idea how that thing works. My hair skills end at ponytails. But it’s fine. It’s just practice.”
“No it’s not. Everybody else has theirs in. Just do it.”
I talked her off the cliff just in time for her class to be summoned to the stage for their ballet routine. Two attempts at that and they were ready for their tap routine.
Here’s where Kinsey showed off her newly acquired powers.
Her class runs off stage and another class runs out for their tap routine. This is a sign to me that I should take Kinsey’s tap shoes back to her so she’ll be ready when her class does tap. I head out a side door into a hallway where I thought the girls were getting ready. They aren’t there. Hmmm….
Maybe they are backstage. And listen, there aren’t too many places I’m more uncomfortable than being backstage at dance recital rehearsal. Here’s a short list: Kinnick Stadium in my Cardinal and Gold, a discussion on the merits of higher income taxes and any viewing of Steel Magnolias. Anyway, I’m back there and I don’t see Kinz. I ask one of her classmates if she’s in the dressing room. She’s not. I ask another if she’s in the bathroom. She’s not.
Things that make you hmmm…
I return to the auditorium via the same door I exited. Retracing my path sometimes helps me find things I’ve lost.
I see her with that confused worried look. Like General Hooker at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Or moviegoers forced to endure another Tom Cruise flick.
Just then one of the other Moms walks by and smiles at Kinsey – “Hey you told me your Dad was wearing a hat, glasses and a yellow shirt.”
Evidently Kinsey looked so frantic that one of the Moms asked if she could help her find me. That description would have helped except I wasn’t wearing a hat or my glasses. And I was wearing a white shirt with light blue, dark blue and green stripes.
The rest of the rehearsal goes well. We speed home just in time for Mom and Riley to leave. I make dinner and then go upstairs to change clothes before we head off to the grocery store.
I absent mindedly put on some shorts, a yellow Pirates spring training shirt I just got for my birthday, a hat and my glasses.
So did Kinsey predict the future? Or did she just influence it? And if all she did was influence it, what does this mean for the teenage years?
Chronicles of Dad 