This Magic Moment

Last night was one of the best times of my life. Lucy had her Christmas program at school. It was a crazy night, Bethany was late getting home from work, we had house church meeting at our home, and I was responsible for making dinner. We would be leaving shortly after everyone arrived, and returning hopefully sometime before it was scheduled to end.

I got both kids dressed and out the door. We were walking into the school’s play ground when the Wife called out to us and we were able to walk in together. Bethany and Jack found their way to the auditorium and I got Lucy situated in her classroom. Then, I joined the others in the auditorium.

This was Jack’s first time sitting in “bouncy seats.” You know the seats that are spring loaded like in movie theaters? He was having a blast making them bounce. He would raise his legs and let the seat come up, then grunt and push his legs down to make the seat go back down. It was endless entertainment.

Finally, students started to appear on stage, the principal made an announcement and then the curtains opened. It took only a few seconds for us to spot Lucy, but it took her minutes to locate us, despite our best efforts to waive and move so she could spot us. I guess we weren’t the only parents trying to employ this strategy. Eventually she spotted us, made a waive of her own, and promptly got lost in the singing/performing experience.

They sang several songs, some of which I had only heard previously by Lucy singing them at home to “practice.” Lucy was sitting on the upper level of the risers to the left of the stage (as we were looking at it). She was fidgety. She would play with her hair, bounce it into her face, or not so discretely pick her nose. Bethany and I were laughing really hard. We laughed the hardest when they started the 12 days of Christmas. It wasn’t your typical gifts, but they hung different things in the tree and when they said them, the students would hold up cutouts of the items. The first gift was a bird feeder, the 2nd day was 2 teddy bears, and the 3rd was 3 penguins. Lucy was a penguin. Well, she tried to be anyway.

She got a little distracted at times and missed her cue, or was early, but was rarely Johnny on the spot. Sometimes she would thrust up the penguin with such exuberance that it would flip over her hand and we would end up being mooned by the penguin. All of this is happening despite there being a teacher off to the side of the stage trying to coach the 2 girls and prompt them to act on time.

It wasn’t until after the program while I was relaxing at home that I remembered a story that Jared had told me once. He had gone back to his high school to compete in the annual alumni soccer match against the current players. While he was out there running around, he bends over, plucks a dandelion from the ground, races over to the stands and gives it to his father, who tears up remembering his son not caring about the soccer ball at all, but sitting on the field and plucking dandelions for minutes at a time.

I can only hope, that in the years to come, I will be able to experience more “penguin” moments with Lucy, and that in turn, she will remember them and return them to me in a moment of fondness at a later date.