I will deny ever admitting this under any circumstances whatsoever, but maybe spending the weekend at a dance conference wasn't awful? And maybe was even ... fun?
Okay, I'm not going to go quite that far, but it is a special kind of fantastic to watch your kid do that thing that makes her heart sing. Alexis spent every minute of the weekend as happy as she has ever been, and it wasn't just because her dance studio won allllllllll of the awards.
Like, literally, ALL of them. There were complaints from some of the other studios and I totally get it. There were multiple times when Alexis' studio swept categories. As for Alexis herself, she was on a team that took first place three out of six times with two "top score in the category" type things. The three dances that weren't first were in the same categories as the ones that were, so basically they beat themselves. It was a bit much and I'm relatively certain there was a strategic decision that made it all happen.
We drove four hours to a competition that toured in Pittsburgh just a week ago. Someone went looking for that clean sweep and they found it in Lancaster, PA.
ANYWAY.
While Alexis was all of the happy, so was Mila. Mila, she who is aggressively joyous at all times, truly lived her best life all weekend long. She managed to go swimming, eat all of the junk, make lots of new friends, and watch her sister dancing. Those are all things that rank high on her favorites list, so it's not surprising that she smiled non-stop the whole time.
Mila watching her sister dance is genuinely one of the Tiny Human's favorite things. Her heart explodes when her sister is on stage and IT IS THE CUTEST DAMN THING EVER. There was a true test of Mila's commitment to her sister this time, though. Just before Alexis' Really Big Dance Number (like, literally, there are 80 dancers in the dance - it's BIG), there was another "Production" number by another studio. It was really well done with fantastic costumes and a great story line and ... Toy Story. They literally condensed the entire plot of the first Toy Story movie into a 5-minute dance and they did it well.
Really well.
Rex was AMAZING. He was one of those inflatable dinosaur costumes, so watching him dance was hilarious, especially when he did fancy ballet moves. And Woody was great and Bo Peep was perfection and ... do you know how much Mila loves Toy Story?
It's A LOT. A lot lot lot.
At the end of the dance, Mila stood up and cheered. She was completely in on every aspect of the performance and said, "That was the best dance of the whole competition!"
It was really good. It didn't have the highest level of technical difficulty, but it was still well done.
And then came Alexis and her 79 perfect little dance friends. They were in the same category as the Toy Story number, but they rolled out a technically excellent extravaganza. It was a very traditional lyrical performance with layers and beautiful choreography and basically this whole thing is like comparing Disney on Ice with a performance by the New York Ballet. It's apples and oranges, but one of them is definitely more of a "kid" show.
Annnd yet, when all was said and done and I asked Mila which dance was her favorite, she said, "Sissy's." She said it with certainty and fanfare, so much so that I was all, "Are you sure? I mean, Toy Story was pretty good," and she was all, "My sister was better."
I think maybe Mila plays favorites. And it's the best.