Tonight was Cheyenne’s last elementary music performance.  I had to darn near beg her to wear a skirt.  She insisted that she would be the only one wearing a skirt and I insisted she wouldn’t.  Thankfully there were a handful of other girls who also wore skirts.  When Cheyenne realized that she was in the minority based on the fact that she was wearing semi-dressy clothes she gave me the "I told you so" scowl.  Unfortunately, I think this will go on my permanent parenting record and will resurface for decades to come.

The show was not unlike past years’ performances – singing, dancing and interesting instruments.  Interestingly though, this year for the dancing segments boys were paired with boys and girls were paired with girls.  In past years I don’t recall any issues with the boy/girl pairing, but apparently fifth grade is different.  I asked Cheyenne about this and she said they all got to choose their own partners and all the girls chose girls and all the boys chose boys.  I tried to dig deeper into this phenomenon with Cheyenne but she was having no part of it.  Her response was, "Really, mom?  Move on."  My theory is that it is a huge step in fifth grade to select a boy partner and no one was willing to bite that bullet just yet…but what do I know?  I am the one who was proven wrong on my assumption that all the kids would dress up.

The kids were not as enthused about the program this year as they have been in years past.  I guess fifth grade is about the time that these general music performances start to lose their appeal.  The biggest smiles were produced by the kids when the show was over…they knew they had survived their last elementary performance.

Soon we will be on to middle school and a whole different frame.  I suspect there will be many more "I told you so" scowls in my future.  But today, today was my youngest child’s last elementary performance.  I realized while watching the performance that I am not ready to move on to middle school.  I like elementary school and I want to stay.  I have said it before and I will say it again – the time goes too fast, at least as it relates to how quickly kids grow up…as it relates to continuously bringing up black marks on your permanant parenting record, well then time drags on…the universe is cruel like that.

Day two hundred and eighty-one of the new forty – obla di obla da

CC