For the past couple of weeks, dd14 and dd12 have been busy, busy, busy, preparing a surprise performance for their choir leader who got engaged.  They made up a dance, a song, and a short humorous skit in her honor.  This has meant hours of time – not just creating the dance, etc, but in planning who would do what, calling all the other girls in the choir almost daily, working out times and locations for practices, what they would wear, how they would present it so she’d be surprised, the music for the dance, costumes and props for the play, painting a sign to hold up when the engaged young lady came in – the list just goes on and on.

I’ve been very flexible about giving them whatever time they felt necessary to do all of this (and they’ve been very responsible about doing all of the academic work that’s expected of them), but today I was thinking that I was very glad that tonight was the performance.  Because it’s nice that they’re so engaged and excited about this, but it’s nice when they’re available at home, too.  Not just home, but emotionally present. 

I was so glad to hear when they came home that all went well.  (Because it was a surprise, no one extra was invited, or it would have been fishy.  But it was videotaped so we’ll get to see it.)  Dh and I reminded them before they left that however it went, it would be a success, but I know they wanted it to flow as they pictured it.  When you put so much of your time and effort into something, you want it to go well and be successful.  Even though it wasn’t perfect, they came home all smiles and happy with how everything went, as well as being able to surprise the girl it was done for – she said that this is the first time anyone has ever successfully carried out a surprise for her (usually she figures it out beforehand). 

When they got back, they mentioned that Sunday morning they have a performance.  “What?!?” I asked.  “We told you about it!”  It turns out that they’ll be doing a short choir performance then, but when they mentioned it to me, I thought they were talking about their performance that they did tonight!  I didn’t realize that two separate things were under discussion.  So it’s not all over as soon as I expected, but I’m glad they have opportunities like these, and I can’t complain that they have so many good things to be busy with!

Avivah