Nutcracker? More Like Ballbreaker.

My daughter, S, doesn’t want to be a mouse. She wants to be a snowflake. Not in real life, but rather in the Nutcracker Ballet that her dance school performs in conjunction with its sister professional ballet company. This is the last thing I thought would be an issue on a Monday night in September, but sometimes that’s how it goes. My daughters have been known to fret about their birthday party themes a full eight months before their actual birthdays. Pre-suffering is a constant theme in my house. That’s how we roll.

In the case of mouse versus snowflake, however, it was not premature at all. The day before, S auditioned for a part in the Nutcracker. Audition is a generous word for what took place, though, since every child who is enrolled in the dance school can participate as long as a parent wrote a check and agreed to the mysterious rehearsal schedule. So if your check clears and so does your weekend calendar for the next two months, you’re in!

I am sure more consideration goes into tryouts and assigning parts than it appeared, based on some incredibly complicated dance rubric that only the school director knows. My daughter was fairly stressed about the entire process, since we didn’t realize it was an automatic thing. When it comes to the Nutcracker, what’s one more mouse or party child, really? But S went through the motions, black leotard and pink tights on, her hair tucked up in a snood. She loves to say snood. When the audition was over, S was very excited about being in the dance and thought she did very well.

Cut to last night. My husband informed us that an email had been received from the dance school while I was reading bed time stories. The subject line read “mice recital.”

“Mice?” S asked incredulously. “I don’t want to be a mouse.” The tears began, the lip stuck out in a pout.
“Great,” I said to my husband, shooting him a look.
“What did I do? I thought she’d want to know.”

If there’s one thing I learned about my children, it’s that you don’t share news with them at bedtime. Not if you want them to sleep. I calmed S down the best I could using my arsenal of lullabies and back rubs.

No less than ten minutes after my husband left for the gym and the girls were tucked in bed, S came running down the hallway to where I sat on the couch watching television. She was really crying now and throwing herself on the loveseat, rolling back and forth. A tantrum, I think it’s called.

“What’s up?” I asked her noncommittally. “Is this still about the mouse?”
“Yessss,” she wailed. “I want to be a sssnowflakkke.”
“What’s so great about a snowflake? I’ve seen the Nutcracker a gazillion times and I don’t even remember a snowflake in it. But the dance with the mice is really important. Everyone remembers that part.”
“But the mouse dance is boring. And stupid. All they do is spin in a circle. Besides, I was a mouse last year in the school play.”
“Well, maybe they thought you would make a good mouse since you had experience. Or a better mouse than a snowflake. I’m sure they have a reason.”
“Yes, it’s cause I am a bad dancer. I’m never gonna dance again!” Fresh tears started, and S threw herself on the loveseat a couple more times.

Here’s my question: What do boys do? If they don’t get to play the position they want on a sports team, do they cry and carry on? How do they handle their disappointment? I don’t know, since I don’t have one of those. All I have are worrisome self-blaming drama queens. Not that S’s disappointment isn’t deserved nor understandable. It’s the leap from not getting the part to not wanting to dance anymore that I don’t get.

I tried to channel my inner Oprah and convince her that it is just an honor to be in the ballet. How wonderful that she will get to dance with grownups whose career path is dance because that is what they love to do. How next year she will probably get an even bigger part since she will have more experience. How she will be on the big stage, not the little one they use for the children’s theater. It worked well enough to stop her crying and drift off to sleep, her, not me. I spent the next two hours wondering if I was going to have to talk her off the ledge after each rehearsal.

A little disappointment is a good thing now and then. It will prepare her much better for adulthood than being a snowflake ever could.