Who is he talking about?

A couple of years ago, when La Nina was new to the whole dance scene I remember seeing this group of girls dance. They were amazing. They did this tap routine to the Travis Tritt song "T-R-O-U-B-L-E". They were dressed all in black, and man, could those little girls tap. I started talking to their Moms and they were all in 2nd or 3rd grade...old compared to my Kindergartner. Those little tappers made quite an impression and I'm still talking about them 3 years later.

Last weekend La Nina completed her final performances of the 2009-2010 season. Her group, nicknamed the "Moes", because they danced to Joe Jackson's "5 Guys Named Moe", performed in the recitals for the dancers aged 2 to 6. The "Moes" were the Big Girls at this show. At this point in the season, the girls are basically dialing in their performances. They can do this dance in their sleep. I've seen this dance performed at least 15 times, so even us Moms don't even bother to watch the performance, we busy ourselves with things like World Cup games that are being played at the same time.

Anyhoo, after the show, I took the "Moes" into the back of the theatre to watch last part of the show. As we were walking through the halls backstage, this dad of one of the other performers stopped them and said, "You girls were awesome. How old are you?"

They answered "8" because they all are 8. And then he proceeded to tell them how great they were. He asked them how many years they had been dancing, etc. (Before you think he was weird...I swear, he was just a Dad lined up for the Daddy-Daughter dance...nothing odd about it.)

While the girls politely (and professionally, I might add) answered the questions and I checked the US-Ghana score on my phone, it suddenly struck me: To him, they were as good as the TROUBLE girls were to me 3 years ago. It was really shocking. I don't see these girls like that. I've seen that dance so many times. I've seen them nail it. I've seen them mess it up. I've seen them just go through the motions. But to an outsider, they were really good. I guess La Nina is getting somewhere with this whole dance madness. And just like her growing up, I don't notice the changes because I'm blinded by the hours, when I should be trying to see the months.

That little 'aha' made the fact I missed part of World Cup backstage at a dance recital worth it...almost. I might not say that if the US had won.