March 5th.  We have been dreading this day since returning from winter break.  We have cried and negotiated and disaster planned - for scheduled on this day, was the Oak Ridge Elementary 4th Grade  Concert.

Those of you who are loyal readers of the blog, know that the concert (or any situation with multiple people) cause extreme stress for our sweet girl.  For those of you new to our story, here's a quick update.

Kindergarten - she cried and cried until and her teacher snatched her off stage.  

First - she cried and cried until her teacher snatched her off stage.

Second - she caught a (what I believe to be stress) sickness, and couldn't attend

Third - she cried the entire time, but remained on stage

While I know this is super stressful for Harps, it's also super stressful for us.  AP and I talked about just letting her skip the whole thing, but knew we wouldn't. So we began our preparation which included lots of practicing, even more positive self talk, recitation of mantras, brave oil, and new shoes.

The night of the show, I told her she could do it, and she would do it, and we would be in the audience (in the far back row, so she couldn't see us).  We laced up her new kicks, put some curls in her hair and applied just a bit of gloss to her lips. 

I dropped her off in her classroom, gave her a quick squeeze, and took a pic of the twinning.  Then, I said a few prayers for strength for her and me.

And, you know the rest of the story.  She did it - of course she did it.  Not one single tear, and there was even a hint of a smile (although it was hard to see from the back row).  We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when the 9th, and final song, concluded. 

Proud of you, Harper Nicole.  You can do hard things.