Irish I love you

Day 17 of 31 at TWT!

"Look, here comes Sis!" My mom, my dad, Husband, and I all point towards the middle of the park patio as Rainbow Girl bounces on Husband's lap. A reel comes on over the loudspeaker, and Sweetie bounce-skips gracefully out onto the patio with her classmates. They pause, one foot outstretched, in the Irish dance waiting pose. Suddenly, Sweetie glances over at us and flashes her hand up with her thumb, index, and pinky fingers raised in the "I love you" sign, before starting to dance.

Sweetie is on the left. It's hard to see, but her hand (which should be down at her side) is raised in the "I love you" sign! <3

"Awwww!" The family we don't know beside us coos. 

"Look, Sis is saying 'I love you'!" I nudge Rainbow. "We love you, Sweetie!"

Rainbow Girl stretches both arms into the air, hands raised, little fingers clumsily fashioned into the same signal she just finally learned a few weeks ago. As we all watch Sis bounce lightly, graceful toes tapping in fancy footwork, Rainbow alternately claps, waves her arms wildly, and stretches out double "I love you" signs several more times. 

Rainbow Girl working on the "I love you" sign while Sis performs on the park patio at our city's St. Patrick's Day celebration! <3

It's a gorgeous evening, but nothing is more gorgeous than the love these two share. 

Catching our breath

Day 13 of 31 at TWT!

"Yes! I'm still catching my breath!" Sweetie's eyes sparkle and her wiggly body is even bouncier than usual as she answers my question about if she feels proud. I know that under her mask, her gap-toothed grin is as wide as it can get. 

"How did you feel about dancing in front of your whole school?" I don't want to plant the idea that she should've been nervous, but I certainly would've been nervous to be on stage in front of 800 people, especially knowing some of them were my friends and classmates. 

"I was excited! I was a little nervous beforehand, but after we practiced, I felt good!" 

She's practically skipping as we weave through the hallways, passing kids headed to buses and kids headed to cars. Her curly Irish bun-wig (which cost me quite a bit of effort and 50 bobby pins this morning!) piled on top of her regular hair makes her seem even taller than her usual already-tall-for-her-age skinny self.

"Your friend from Girl Scouts saw me walking to get you..." I'm interrupted by a cluster of girls waving and saying "Great job! Good dancing!" "...and came up to tell me that you did a great job, just like that!" We both giggle. 

Around the corner, it happens again. And again. "Good job!" "I liked your dancing!" "Good Irish dance show!"

"I don't even know those kids!" she beams. 

"They can see your wig and uniform! You must feel so proud!"

"Yeah! I'm still catching my breath!" she repeats, hopping a little. 

And seeing her so proud, seeing her celebrated by her peers and teachers, knowing how hard she's worked for years to make this dream come true, I'm breathless too. 

Ready to dance for her school! <3

Bedtime questions

Day 9 of 31 at TWT!

 "Why's it called preschool?" Rainbow Girl's sweet voice kicks on through the monitor as I chug through my evening work routine downstairs.

'Pre' is a word part that means 'before', my teacher-voice immediately says in my head, as if I'm adding it to the word wall for my students.

"Ummm..." I can't quite hear Husband's lower, softer answer.

"When I grow up, I'm gonna go to Irish Dance School 'stead of preschool," Rainbow Girl announces to him. "And Meemaw and Granddaddy will come see me! They'll take off their shoes!"

Take off their shoes? I'm stumped for a moment until I realize she's remembering when we got to visit her big sister's Irish Dance school in December for their winter celebration, where the class showed off the dances they've been learning, including their first time in hard shoes. No street shoes are allowed on the practice floor, so families had to take off our shoes to enter the studio. She remembers everything!

"Why we have to take off our shoes?" her little voice cuts through the monitor again.

"Umm so we don't hurt the..." Husband starts, but she interrupts him.

"It's squishy!"

Their conversation grows soft enough that the monitor goes back to sleep, kicking back on occasionally every few minutes to treat me to pieces of Husband singing their nighttime medley of "Jingle Bells" (added at Christmastime and now a permanent part of the routine), "When I Woke Up Today", "You Are My Sunshine", and "End of the Rainbow".

I smile as I finish tomorrow's lesson plans, wondering if she really will want to be an Irish dancer like Sis. It's sweet to hear her imagining her future, even though at 3, the possibilities she dreams of are mostly limited to what she sees the rest of us do. Who will she really grow up to be, as she keeps turning from baby to kid? 

Dancing dream

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

Nearly 4 years ago, when she was just 2, Sweetie fell in love with the Irish dancers at our town's Irish Festival. I've always loved the music and dancers too, but she was absolutely mesmerized, even as far from the stage as we sometimes were. She stood on my lap, clapping, bouncing, and pointing. 

Sweetie at 2 years old, clapping to the dancers

When I set her down, she started dancing immediately, and over the next few days (weeks, and months), we were astonished to see how much detail she'd picked up as she watched. She pointed her toes, she kicked up her legs, she brought her foot to her knee. On the car ride home, she started asking for "Irish songs" and then wanted the one I already had on my phone "again!" and "again!", causing me to download more songs in a weekend than I usually do in months. I figured it would be a phrase that she'd outgrow in a few weeks, but by the time the next festival rolled around the following year, she was dancing in an unmistakably Irish style anytime she heard music (and plenty of music-less times)!

That summer, at 3, she self-taught-Irish-stepped her way around every dance floor at the festival, to the delight of all the musicians on stage and all our fellow festival-goers. One local band even invited her up to the stage to dance with them, but she couldn't quite figure out if that was really ok. We scoured the festival program and tried to hit every dance show we could!

3 years old, dancing in front of the dancers

Most thrilling for her, she got to participate in an Irish dancing lesson from a local Irish dance school at the dance floor in the children's area. That did it. She started telling everyone she was an Irish dancer! 

her first "lesson" / first time dancing "on stage" <3 

This was definitely not a phase. Whenever she met someone new, she'd declare that she was a dancer and break into something that definitely resembled a jig enough that the new person would grin and say, "Oh yeah, Irish! I see!" Thankfully, the spring she turned 4, the local Irish dance school decided to add pre-beginner class sessions for kids as young as 4, so she finally got to start learning real steps instead of making them up! All summer, she practiced her jig steps: "cross over, up, back-two-three-four", until it was finally time for another Irish Festival. Now, she knew the teachers and some of the "big dancers" from her school, so we targeted their shows on the program and she spent her weekend waving wildly and pointing to the dancers she knew. Now, she was starting to talk about someday dancing on the stage.

4 years old, waving to her teachers as they danced on stage!

We spent every waking minute of the festival weekend watching dancers, and we signed her up for the 3-day mini-camp at her dance school the week after the festival.

1st mini-camp, she's the one in the air on the right!

Now that she was an official student of the dance school, we got to attend their ceili (Irish dance event) in February 2020, where we all learned to do reels just before the world shut down.

ceili reel!

In August 2020, we danced at home to a livestream "festival" with footage from previous years and Sweetie moved up to real beginner level, earning a practice uniform and real ghillies (soft shoes)! All this school year, her little sister frolicked around her in our family room as she did her lessons on Zoom, finally looking like a real Irish dancer, but with nobody to see her. 

Zoom lesson, in her practice uniform!

This past weekend, nearly 4 years after that festival when she fell in love with the dancers, her dance school had an outdoor recital, right on one of the stages used during the festival! 4 years of dreaming, pretending, and practicing, and now here she was, in a beginner performance uniform, doing the cutest two-hand jig (with masks and no hand-holding) that has ever been performed. 

3rd from the left (with her leg way up)!

in her uniform, watching the older dancers, still dreaming

After the beginners danced, the school even surprised them by calling them back up on stage to receive "first recital" medals, which she insisted on wearing the rest of the day. "I want everyone to know I'm a dancer and I got a medal!" she declared. 

What a pleasure it is to watch as a dream dances in your child's heart!