Bad News/Good News

Yesterday was a fantastic day! I mean FANTASTIC. The only thing negative about the day was that it snowed. Yes, snowed, again. Daniel was actually in our family room, picture running in place arms flailing having a fit, crying and yelling, "make it stop snowing, change the weather!" We had a guest over then who answered EXACTLY how I do every time this happens, "buddy, I would if I could!" That was the bad news, well that, and the fact that we had such a great weekend I pretty much ignored Daniel's school work. We crammed for his math test last night at 8:00pm and didn't do nearly what I normally would. I'm dealing with my parental neglect and concentrating on the GOOD.

The good news is back in November I purchased tickets to The Lion King. Daniel loves performances and has been to several small scale productions with school. He has been to the symphony with his band class last year and did great. The kid loves to perform and I think he pictures himself up there having the time of his life. He is so taken in by the visual that you can see him being lifted to the heavens. There is NOTHING more visual that The Lion King and I finally felt the risk of spending $332.00 on tickets and possibly having to leave mid performance was in our past. So I rolled the dice and bought the tickets. They were good tickets too. I reserved seats on the aisle for two reasons 1. I had heard that the "animals" come right down the aisle and I wanted them to be close to see that. and 2. IF Daniel couldn't make it and freaked out we'd have a fairly easy exit.

Daniel was so excited about this he woke up at 5:00 am on SATURDAY (the performance we were attending was on SUNDAY). He was talking about it constantly. We had gone over and over the intermission thing, because I thought the stoppage of the performance would irk him. After the discussion he was ok with it. We were also doing this instead of his Sunday swim. This also was no problem at all for him to accept. I think he would have done anything to go. When the performance time came he was sitting in his seat, between Todd and I (Zachary scored the end seat by all the actors coming down!) the anticipation in Daniel was palpable. Then, he put his arm around me, leaned in, put his head on my shoulder with his grin and said, "I love you so much mom, I'm hugging you". That is a happy mom moment if I've ever seen one. My stress about the money poofed into the air quicker than you can say "Simba" and the lights went down, the "animals" came down the aisle, Rafiki (who was amazing!) was on stage with the opening and the look on his face was truly priceless. Priceless.

Throughout the performance he put his arm around me several more times, leaned in and kissed my cheek or gently put his head on my shoulder. He was in heaven, and so was I. Zachary loved it. All of us loved it. By the end Daniel was getting antsy, but he was keeping it together. I had told him before it started the Hakuna Matata song was the last song before the intermission so he knew when that song started the intermission was near. I did the same for the end of the show. It is important for him to have these small warnings. It is so wonderful to be able to whisper these cues to him and he takes it and runs with it. Near the end he said, "I can't yell, something" I don't remember the something, but he was about done. I told him, as Todd did from the other side that we were almost there. He made it. We did it. We spent a lot of money and it was WORTH every last penny.

This morning on the way to school he couldn't WAIT to talk to people about it today. What a great conversation starter. We saw a boy in his class there, and I'm sure many others will have seen it, or will in the next 2 weeks left in it's run. That $332, may have helped him build a little bit more of the bridge with is peers and the adults who work with him. That is also priceless.

Oh and Michigan State University, played their way into the FINAL 4! Which in our house is about as close as you can come to God! So overall we had an amazing day. You could even almost, almost ignore the snow.