Am I a lousy parent, or what?

I promised myself that this Christmas would be different after the disaster that was last year's Christmas play. Little Adia was in Reception and they were the youngest group participating for the whole show. Thus I was flabbergasted when the decision was made to make them sing their little song from the floor rather than from the stage. Picture it, 60 parents all trying to catch a glimpse or photograph their child behind several rows of other parents. All my photos had bright spots of peoples' hair or shoulders in the foreground, with Adriana this fuzzy little blob in behind it. Poor little Adia was getting upset as well because she couldn't see me either. I frantically tried to stand in the aisle, but Mrs. Morrissey (our head) was quite adamant that we keep the aisles clear for fire and safety reasons. I just couldn't understand why they wasted so much time pratising something that we couldn't even see! I just thanked God that I didn't force Orest to take off work to come and not see Adia, cuz he would have been pissed!

So I wasn't expecting much from this year's performance (even though I made my frustrations quite clear last year) and I vowed to chill out and enjoy it. Through a series of misadventures with dead camera batteries and Adriana's unwillingness to thrust herself forward, I have very little to show for it on the video or still camera. There's a 30 second clip of her dancing and waving a scarf on the stage (what that has to do with the Nativity is anyone's guess) and I have a few photos of her standing in the back row on the floor for the duration of the play(see right). I tried to coax her into the front row, just so I could get a photo of her that looked like I meant to get one of her and not everyone else's children, but either she didn't want to or she couldn't understand what I wanted from her. (I think it's the latter since she inexplicably began singing very loudly.) As I joked with her teacher after the play: "I didn't see her, but I could definitely hear her!"

The following Saturday was St. Nicholas day at Ukrainian school with its requisite performance. All three girls had learned their verses and songs and I was ready at the still camera while Orest was with the video. So Adriana's class gets up to sing a song, and again, she's in the back row with this big kid directly in front of her with a busby on his head, no less! (What this has to do with St. Nicholas, is again, anybody's guess.) Here I am jostling with the other parents in the aisle, frantically whispering to her to move into an open space so I could get a good shot of her, but she's turned in the other direction, facing Orest and the video camera. (I guess she did learn something from previous expereince, but it was of little use to me.) So I got bupkiss on the camera and incurred the wrath of another parent whose child was undoubtedly in the front row and wanted a photo of them, but got my fat behind instead.
On top of all this, Stefa decided to go completely stroppy on us (I think someone told her to stand somewhere she didn't want to stand) and her performance was marked by an aggressive 'hands on hips' stance, followed by flouncing off the stage when finished. Aaah, the teenage years, ain't they a pip?

So what did I learn this year that I can take with me to next year? I did come to the realization that my children are all different. Where I was used to having Larysa propel herself from the back row to the front for any and all performances, suddenly I find myself with Adriana, who is happy to hide behind children twice her size. I also have a child (or pre-teen) who is no longer willing to smile for the camera and wears her emotions like an shield in front of her. That, and I'll have to learn to use some of the camera features like zoom-in for Adia and filtering for Stefa which perhaps may mitigate their issues with photo-taking.

Or I could just smile and enjoy the moment and forget about any and all photographic momentos...I'm sure the other parents could use one less frantic parent in the aisle to compete with.