Junior High Band/Choir Concert

On the way to the orthodontist on Tuesday, Alyssa told me that last year, in sixth grade, she was always very nervous before a band performance.

But, she said gleefully, this year, she’s not nervous at all. No, she’s EXCITED. Then she did jazz hands, which is absurdly adorable when a twelve year old (who will be thirteen in FOUR weeks) does it. Seriously. If you know any kids in their late-pre-teens or early teens, you should totally get them to do jazz hands because, yes, so flipping cute!

I was happy to hear that she was excited about the band and choir concert that was a few hours away. I love that she’s learning to enjoy performing. She’s got a lot of years ahead of her for band and choir and whatever other endeavors that put her in front of an audience.

I feel like we made the right decision when we moved to this school district. Alyssa has made such great friends, friends who support each other, who believe in each other, who are there for each other.

Everyone needs that, but middle schoolers seem to need it most of all. Friends make everything a little easier.

She’s been preparing for this concert for most of the school year. Obviously, all of the students have. We’ve been listening to her sing Christmas music since early October and she practices her flute almost every day, which means we’ve heard the selections for the concert over and over again; the flute part anyway.

I love her choir and band directors but I’ve enjoyed teasing Lyss for the past month about how if I were one of the music directors of the school, I’d be totally picking more modern music for the choir to sing or the band to play. She rolls her eyes at me and defends the musical selections, suggesting the teachers chose those pieces because of their difficulty.

Ha. Okay. I really do love this age so, so much. She amuses me so and I annoy her so and all is well in our world.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before “Winter” Break. The junior high and high school are having Star Wars dress up day. The only reason I know this is because Olivia needed to pee during Alyssa’s concert and so I took O to one of the restrooms in the junior high hallway. There was a flier taped to the inside of the stall door declaring Star Wars dress up day. It reminded students to keep their costumes school appropriate. Okay then.

I am trying to convince Lyss to let me do her hair in either Princess Leia buns or the triple bun thing the heroine of the new movie wears.





She let me practice last night but made no promises about actually letting me do her hair like that for school where her actual friends would see it.

I think it’s adorable. She still thinks I’m weird. Again, all is well in our world.