Tigger and Teeth

This was our last eisteddfod item. Song and Dance. We came second. Hooray! Beth and Leila were hoping to get a silver medal to complete the trio (gold from last year, silver and bronze from this one).

There performance standard varied greatly across the competing groups, and I thought we were sure to win until I saw the last item: they were a very polished group, no littlies (their younger performers did a separate item in the same category) and they were genuinely better (even if I liked our age-appropriate, non-sexist message a lot more!).

What do you think of the tigger costumes? Let me tell you they were pretty bouncy on stage: Once again their was a whole lot more dancing in our item compared to almost all the other groups. And they sang in tune! Some of the other groups just sort of shouted out a monotone. It was a bit disturbing to see one group dressed in adorable little bee costumes doing stationary hand actions to “Squishing up a baby bumble bee…”. I like Mrs J’s choreography a lot.

Once again I had my girls arrive dressed, with their dressing gowns on over the top. They were very well behaved backstage, whilst waiting forever to get their eye makeup completed by Mrs J (the dance school principal).

Hannah and I got to sit in the audience and watch the whole neo solo section before ours began, and who did we find in the audience… The Brighton Chick cousins! Wow, thanks guys. I think that if it hadn’t been for cousins, Hannah wouldn’t have made it through this third session – she was a bit over the whole thing!

I was pretty impressed to see the boys and Matt. And Granny and Rhiannon too. Damien managed to make it in time for our girls’ performance as well.  You can't see it well in this photo, but Matt's face was swollen, and he couldn't smile properly.  More on that later.

After the event was over, and we paid for our medals (yup you have to buy your own medal) the girls and I visited with the Chicks in their home until after dinner.

Matthew came home with Sophie in the late afternoon after a trip to the dentist. I can’t wait to see the blog on that one… Sophie is so brave! She was smiling and happy and showed us the healthy (but misplaced) tooth the dentist had removed.

Matt, wasn't looking so great. He looked rather green. Then I looked green too: How embarrassing! That’s the first time I’ve been well on my way to fainting just from being grossed out. I had my pre-syncopal episode holding a flashlight for Matt while he surgically corrected the dentist’s omission in his own mouth with shaking hands and a scalpel… Pus. Pain. Ugh.

Good thing I was able to do a controlled collapse and then find somewhere to sit quietly until I stopped feeling like I was going to throw up. This from a girl who has watched heart surgery, but apparently I’m squeamish after all. Sorry I wasn’t much use Matt!

I was very appreciative of how well the kids all played, looked after each other,  and also gave the adults some time and space for conversation.  Very impressive.  Thank you.

It was certainly a long, eventful day.  When I got home, all three kids were asleep.  I was able to carry them inside and put them to bed.  Boy, Bethany is getting big!   I can barely carry her now, so I was glad that she's not on the top bunk anymore.  We've separated the bunks back into two singles after Hannah' fell earlier in the week.  She bruised her knee and cheek, but was otherwise unharmed thank goodness.