All's Well That Ends Well

Baroy's play went beautifully. I mean, BEAUTIFULLY. I'm so proud of him, and of M and G for the incredible production values they put into it (the set alone is totally worth the price of admission), and of the remarkable cast. I wish I could drag every single one of you to see it. It's that good.

I'm also really proud of Em, who not only sat through it totally rapt, and understood how important the night was to her father, but also chatted with the cast afterwards like an absolute adult, throwing in occasional references to how she'd sat through the "dry tech" and how nice it was to see it "all come together." I'm not as poised, at 44 years of age, as my 10-year-old is. (And then, this morning, she got up, gathered up her American Girl dolls, and went to have a doll party with her friend J. She's 35 by night, but 10 by day. Which is as it should be.)

I'm especially proud of N, who not only made it through the first act behaving almost perfectly, but slept on my shoulder through the second...including the curtain calls. There's nothing so well-behaved as a sleeping child. (He also stuck like glue to the side of his betrothed throughout the intermission and the champagne celebration later on; at one point, he told me--in all seriousness--that he had to go, because he had to bring some crackers to W, "the love of my life." How could anyone NOT eat him up???)

And the best part? My friend Deb is having both kids over for a sleepover tonight, now that I'm sure N's fever was just flukey thing, and I'm going back to see the play again tonight, just me. Anyone want to join me?

I feel badly about whining so much. The fates have been kinder to me than my behavior deserves.

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And, on a mostly unrelated note, so has my husband. To wit: Last night, as he was gathering up all the opening-night gifts he'd gotten for the cast and crew (framed original script pages for the various cast members, posters, stuff like that), he handed me a package with a note on it that read, in part, "...Know how proud I am of you for all you've accomplished lately."

This (except in black...and except he swears he didn't pay that much but instead got an awesome deal on it on Amazon) was inside.

Now, my camera has been on its last legs for about a year; it has never been the same after N dropped it on a concrete floor and we had to send it in to be repaired. These days, it seems to arbitrarily sprinkle white snowflakes across about half the photos I take in low light, and it only focuses when it really WANTS to. (It apparently wanted to for N, who took this self-portrait of himself two days ago; it had no intention of working for me, however, when I took a photo of Em and her beloved Mr. D on the last day of school.) So I'm thrilled. And so is Em, who now owns my old camera. And even moreso is N, who now owns Em's old digital camera, which used to be my old digital camera, which was originally Baroy's very first digital camera...a birthday gift from me to him four months before N was born.

We are about nothing if not the hand-me-downs in this family. But, hey. It totally works for us. For all of us.