Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Last night was the babyschool Christmas pageant -- or show, or whatever they're calling it: Each class of kids, from the infants to the Kindergarten, got up on stage and sang a song. Or, in the case of the infants, sat there in Christmas-wrapped cardboard boxes staring, bewildered, at a sea of cameras and camcorders ... heh.

Annika's class, Primary 1 (mostly two-year-olds), sang "Feliz Navidad." She's been working on that one for a month, and she does love to sing it -- but last night she mostly stood there, finger in her mouth, biding her time and solemnly regarding the audience as if we, not they, were the ones performing. At the very end, she did the moves they'd learned -- hands on hips, a little bit of a sway back and forth -- and smiled a little at her teacher, Ms. May. Ta da! The end. It was pretty hilarious. Afterward, we adjourned to her classroom for snacks and such, and she kind of made a dinner of cheese & crackers, the poppyseed mini-muffins she and I had made that morning, a sugar cookie, and some apple juice. Since she's never even seen that much sugar at once, much less been allowed to eat it, I'm pretty sure she felt like the whole outing was worth it. Her poor little buddy Rupesh, though -- the way he screamed his face off, more or less the whole time (like R. says he does EVERY DAY at dropoff), I don't think he was having that much fun, cookies or no.

There is, of course, video and a few photos (taken in bad light at odd angles) -- she looked ADORABLE in a new red Gap shirt, black velveteen leggings, and her new "pretty shoes," with her hair down & held back at the front by a barrette (aka "hair things"). I didn't get to put the Stella dress on her, because on Monday they'd sent home a sheet of paper asking us to dress the kids in red & green ... oh well! Another time. I'd hate to get a black mark on our permanent record for dress code violations this early in the game. Heh.

Then it was home to a skipped bath (since it was after 8:00 by then) and on with the footie pajamas (the ones with "pamandas" on them), then lights out -- a big night for all.