Big Weekend for Our Girls
First time experiences. These things are precious, especially as a parent seeing them happen at different times for our children. Whether it is the first time they lose a tooth or the first time they stay the night somewhere other than at home or any of a thousand other things, they all deserve to be noticed. In that vein, what a fun weekend of “firsts” that we just experienced with our daughters.
Our Peanut, had her first day at her first “real-world” job, at a small, local amusement park called Joyland. She has done plenty of babysitting, art commissions, and numerous side gigs. But this is a honest to goodness, out of the house, job. We are very, very proud of her and her desire to begin earning her own money.
She’s a truly unique young woman with a keen understanding of herself. She felt this was a good fit for who she is. As her dad, I happen to agree. I mean, she is an introvert that prefers short conversations with people that she does not know. At Joyland, she gets to work outside in the shade and can get by with saying hardly anything if she so chooses. It really is a brilliant choice. She can spend all day people gazing without having to rub shoulders with others in a claustrophobic, indoor place like a restaurant. It is going to be a great job for her and we have already enjoyed hearing her talk about the things that she saw after her first shift operating the ride “The Whip” for little kids. She saw a bunch of pre-teen boys pretend like they were fighting as people pulled out their phones to video them and then there was this kid that got mad about not being able to take his churro on the ride that Peanut was operating. Some wild stories will be incoming, I am certain.
Then there is our Willow. We have had her in ballet classes for almost two years now and for the last year, she has been attending classes with a large ballet company here in town. It is called Christ in the Arts and they typically put on two major performances a year. Due to COVID this year, the Christmas production was canceled. Thankfully, this weekend, they were able to put on a small show for one night only to allow all of the performers to show how hard they have been working since last September.
Among those performers was our Willow. She has never danced in front of more than just a few people and Sunday she danced with her group in front of several hundred. She did great and was not at all nervous. She is a natural performer so we were not surprised by that. We can’t wait to see what the next several years look like for her in dance, it is going to be fun for sure.