A school performance

Well, it was a busy morning.  I woke up a half hour late and quickly reheated a cup of coffee my husband leaves me in the coffee pot every morning.  Thank goodness he gets up hours before me and does this.  I hate waiting for that first cup of coffee.  My brain doesn't work properly until fully caffienated.  Luckily, my oldest daughter can get herself ready.  Well, almost.  Yes, I still do her hair.  She is 13 and says her arms tire too easily to put her hair in a ponytail.  Shoulder length hair.  Instead of arguing with her, I reluctantly do her hair each morning with a smirk on my face.  Yes, I realize this only adds fuel to the fire.  I realize she will still need her mommy to do her hair when she is thirty two years old.  So anyways, I get her off to school and curl my youngest daughter's hair for school.  She just loves to go to school looking like Shirley temple.  She was singing "God Bless America" at school this morning and had a speaking part before the song.  She has been preparing for this for weeks.  Pushing a shopping cart through Walmart, she clung to side of the cart singing to all of the fellow shoppers.  She even made up little hand gestures to go with the songs, including "jazz hands" at the end.  After years of sitting in the back of the gym for my oldest daughters performances, I realized when I drop the kid off at school, I have to stay there, like a prisoner for an hour before the show just to get a seat in the front.  So, I hang out with all of the other parents.  Some were over eager if you ask me.  Sometimes these things are way overrated.  We go because we have to.  If we don't go, our kid will be sad and it will be our fault.  So I joined the brigade of mostly moms, claiming our seats in front.  My oldest daughter gave me her ipod to record her little sister.  I made small talk for an hour until the first graders arrived, all dressed in white t-shirts and blue jeans.   I saw my daughter take her place in the back row.  My kids always get the back row because they are taller than all the other kids.  My husband calls them circus freaks, but I prefer to say they are built like supermodels.  Anyways, I look at her face and realize she is scared.  Not nervous, but she looks like "somethings under my bed" scared.  I try to get her to smile while a take a picture.  She gives me the "look".  The look that says " Do not embarrass me by taking lots of pictures.  Can't you see I'm terrified?" .  I pull out the ipod as they begin to sing.  I fumble with it trying to get the video to record.  All I can make it do is turn to black and white or sepia.  It will not record.  I want to take it and hurl it at the floor!  What was that?  I couldn't even hear what my daughter said at the microphone.  She blurted out something and quickly returned to her spot in the back.  I had missed it.  My heart sunk.  I don't have an iphone like the mom next to me.  I didn't bring my video camera because, let's face it, I'll never look at the video again after I take it.  It will sit in the video camera until I accidentally record over it.  Oh well.  The songs sounded great.  It was a bittersweet time for me.  Do I hate putting on makeup this early in the morning to go to school?  Yup!  However, I realize this is my last baby.  My oldest won't hold my hand in public anymore.  My youngest will.  I have to savor every minute I can because I know all too well how quickly time passes.