Last night was Andy's spring band concert. It was a joint concert with five elementary schools, the middle school and the high school. It was a fabulous way for the kids in the elementary school to see what they could become in just a few short years if they stuck with band, and also showed them the different bands they could participate in with performances from the high school jazz band and concert band and mention of the marching band. That's the positive part of the evening.
They concert was in the high school gym. I don't know if they don't have an auditorium, which they must because the school is enormous and has about 5,000 students, but I don't think everybody would have fit on the stage because the head director said there were over 300 band members performing. It didn't seem like that many, but there were a lot. So instead of sitting in a nice, dark, plushy seat auditorium, we sat in a bright, everybody can see what you are doing and how well you are paying attention, horrible acoustics gymnasium on wooden bleachers. The only think worse than wooden bleachers is metal bleachers.
Because it was such an enormous (as my friend, April from New Jersey, once told me "that means really, really big") concert, I wanted to get there early to make sure we got seats. We arrived 30 minutes before it started, which still wasn't early enough, but were able to secure seats that were actually facing the band instead of behind it. All that to say that after arriving early and then sitting through an hour and fifteen minute concert, I was in serious pain from those bleachers. Luckily even though the girls were up way past their bedtime, which I recently pushed back from going upstairs at 8ish to going upstairs no later than 7:30 (more about that in a different post if I ever get around to writing it), they were relatively well behaved.
In the end we got home after 8:30 and went straight upstairs to bed. I told the girls that because it was so late, as is the case every time we go to bed more than 30 minutes their bed time, they would not get any books. Amanda put up a huge fuss. She kept moaning and groaning "I want books" but I wasn't giving in. I've been way too easy on her lately and not standing firm when she whines because the kid just beats me down. But when it comes to bedtime and the rules surrounding it, I don't often give in and we run a tight ship. Okay, except for the long time period when I would sit with her when she fell asleep and was so mad at myself for doing it, but no more.
I kissed her goodnight and told her she would get books the next night and gave her another million kisses and hugs but would not read her any books. Seriously, I could have read her two or three books in the time it took me to tell her she wasn't getting any books, but again I had to stay strong. I finally left the room with her still moaning "I want books." Eventually she fell asleep.
I figured that was it, all is forgotten. Not so much. At 6:30 this morning I heard her calling out and went to see what was wrong with her. I walked into her room and the first thing that came out of her mouth was, you guessed it, "I want books". I just shook my head in amazement, covered her back up with her plethora of blankets and told her to go back to sleep.
And that, my friends, is one of my daily joys of living with a hard headed, redundant three-yr-old.
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