Spring Dance Festival

Ethan's school did their Spring Dance Festival tonight and it was great. After weeks and weeks of practicing his song and the moves to the dance I thought Ethan would be fine, but when we walked into the gym and he saw all of the people he kind of froze. I took him to where his class was sitting and told him where we would be and that I knew he would do great, but as we sat and watched him I was worried. He just sat still, staring at the audience, not moving at all. (This is NOT normal for Ethan!) But when the time came to perform he walked out into the middle of the floor, saw Adia waving at him, and yelled at the top of his lungs "Hey Adia, watch this!" and did a little bottom-wiggle-twisty-twirl dance move which caused everyone to laugh. He sang his little heart out, however, the video turned out just awful. The lady in back of us was talking so loud that you can't even hear the song, and there were some kids sitting in front of us that kept standing up, so you can't even see much of the dancing. I would post the video, but it really would be a waste of your time to watch it. Oh, well, I'm sure that there will be more performances and Spring Festivals in the years to come. They school also did a really cute slide show that showed all of the kids in the school, and had several frames of Ethan. I'm not sure if it's because he is so darn cute or if it's because he spends so much time in the office they had a lot of chances to take pictures of him. Either way, they will have it for sale at the end of the year to earn money for a new playground at our sister school, and I think we better get one. (That's one thing that I love about our school. They do a lot of fund raisers that the kids can help with and use the money to get things the kids need. I like that the kids get to help earn things for their school, because that gives them ownership of it, and they take better care of it. But I also love that when they see a need in the community, like the sister school needing a new playground, they pitch in and work for that too. They learn to look outside of themselves, and make things better for other's as well. And it gives them something to take pride in. It's also really cool because there is a student board where the older kids get to decide what needs changing, and come up with the plan to get it done all by themselves. There are teachers and PTA moms there to guide, but it's up to them to make things happen, and it seems to be making great leaders for our future.) Anyway, back to the original subject, Ethan is a very good performer, and I am really proud of him for doing such a great job. Also, when he was finished he came up and sat next to me and didn't even run across the gym causing me to chase after him and embarrass both of us as he has done several times in the past. Things are looking up! :)
*Oh, and another note, I gave a box of cookies and a thank you card to each of Ethan's teachers, paras and therapists after the program, so now we are back down to a reasonable amount of cookies. I'm happy to have that taken care of, but I still think we will need to have a family discussion before girl scout cookie time rolls around next year!