Pointing toes, holding breath

The Nutcracker. Love it or hate it, it's a holiday tradition for ballet companies everywhere and a rite of passage for dancers.

Saturday our local professional company held auditions for the child roles for the Nutcracker. Jungle Boy and Drama Girl both went, and I spent hours with other parents in the next room, filling out forms and waiting.

Oh how I wanted to be a fly on the wall and see how they were doing!

After a while the tiniest kids came out and met their moms. Then some of the 7-10 year olds. I waited. And waited. No sign of my kids. Finally there were only a few of us in the room. And then our kids came in. I was so greedy for information I nearly burst.

"How did it go? Did they cast the kids to play Fritz and Clara [the leads]? What did you have to do? How did the other kids do? Was it hard? Could you do it? What did the choreographer say?"

I'm sure my kids wanted me to just shut up, but they were pretty good about the whole thing.

Jungle Boy; "They asked me a lot of questions, and asked me to do cartwheels."

Drama Girl; "I was one of the tallest, so they made me stay later and work on a special dance with three other girls."

Jungle Boy; "The boy was there who usually plays Fritz, but he was really goofing off the whole time and not paying attention."

Drama Girl; "Jungle Boy was better than that boy."


Believe me, I am trying not to get too excited. But really, it sounds like they held their own. We'll know in a week or so.

OK, I'm lying. I'm excited.