It's Riley's Turn

First, my little Riley lost her first tooth yesterday!! Sylvia helped her pull it out while I held my little girl. It ended up being a really nice family event. Riley was so grateful for Sylvia's help, she thought the "tooth fairy" should visit Sylvia, too! (She didn't. 'Cuz the tooth fairy's a stickler like that!)

But the even bigger news is happening today.

She's not quite the outgoing, spotlight-craving girl that Sylvia is. In fact, if anything, I worry that she acquiesces too much to her big sister...and that I almost even encourage it by just wanting the fight to stop already! It's something I'm working on, but I still can fall into the habit. I've done a heck of a job (Brownie) praising her for being so thoughtful of others, but I get concerned that I'm not giving equal balance to letting her have the last word every now and then.

Well, I can breath a little easier today. Riley decided, all on her own, to sign up for the talent show auditions today. We'd talked about it a little before, but what I thought she was going to do was a group number with some friends. That must have fallen apart because 2 days ago, she said that she'd told her teacher that she would sing all by herself!

That night, we talked about song choice. She wanted to do "Wells Fargo Wagon" (which would've been adorable), but she was worried she didn't know it well enough for an audition in 2 days with little time to practice. (She also has had more homework than her sister this week, for some strange reason.) So we hit upon "Do Re Mi." Perfect. She even had dance movies (mostly copied from the movie) to do with it!

And yesterday, she got up in front of her entire class and did it! I was completely floored when she told me that one.

We're a little worried because she heard that the 5th graders might be doing that song, but I told her to go ahead and do it anyway today at the audition, and if she needed to, we could change her song for the actual talent show. I'm feeling like Mama Rose today. But I'm staying put here at work so that I don't run into the auditorium, screaming "Sing out, Louise!" (Skip to about 1:40 in the video to see what I mean by that.)



Hmmm...so if I were Mama Rose, then that would make Sylvia Baby June...who runs away from home, and Riley would be Baby Louise...who becomes Gypsy Rose Lee. The stripper. Yeah. Much better for me to avoid the Mama Rose label as much as possible!!

But I digress. (Big surprise.) The point is, Miss Riley has decided to do this all on her own, and I've just tried to support that decision. And I am so proud of her!