The Nutcracker Ballet

In keeping with the season and trying to be a good parent that exposed her children to culture (well, as much as I'm going to be able to in this small town) I thought I would take my girls to go see the Nutcracker. Not. My. Best. Idea. I think it would have been a little easier if I wasn't 7 1/2 months pregnant and of course the fact that its TWO AND A HALF HOURS long, so for a 4 and 6 year old that's like 3 weeks. Anyway....the house lights finally went down after 15 minutes of this conversation:

Child: "When is it going to start Mom? When?"

Me: "5 minutes, sweetpea."

Child: "That's what you said last time" (which actually happened to be 5 minutes earlier and and would have been correct if they had started on time.)

Me: "I know punkin, but that when it was supposed to start."

Don't these people know that there are antsy children (and a lot of them from what I saw) sitting in the audience???

Here is just a tiny snippet of the conversations that were interrupting everyone around us (poor, poor people who thought they were coming for a nice afternoon of cultural entertainment)

Act I: the party -- these are just a few of the questions I got

M: "is this supposed to be a party?"

M: "what are they doing?"

E: "Can I sit on your lap?" (mind you...belly out to here, no lap available anymore.)

M: "why isn't anyone talking?"

M: "is this all it is??? Just music??"

E: "I feel like I want to take my shoes off, can I?" (sure, why not, we're going to be here for awhile.)

M: "Can I sit on your lap?" (see above)

E: After Act I ends "it that all? Is it finally over? This is taking forever" (nope, just the first act....)

At Intermission: E: "Can we go home now???"

Note to self...wait until they are older...much, much older before trying this again.