Christmas Concert

On the evening of the 16th, the daycare center had their annual holiday performance, such as it is. Perhaps it should be called a pagent... busy working parents run into daycare at the end of the day, shine their kids up, and send them back to their teachers to walk hand-in-hand onto the stage in the chapel (aka, "The Big Room") with the rest of the kids from their class to ring their jingle bells and sing 3 Christmas/Winter songs.
I got there in time to feed Parker, and brought some food for Maia, figuring she wouldn't make it to 7:00 without eating.
She was a little too excited to eat all that well. So when she was finished, I got her dressed in a little cream colored dress that Ray got her for Christmas last year, but we never really had an opportunity to put her in. Fortunately, even though it was an 18 month dress, it still fit fairly well, and she was absolutely delighted with herself. Once I got her changed, with her sparkly silver shoes and a flower barrette in her hair, I stood her on the counter in the bathroom so she could see herself.
"Whoa! I look like a princess!!" She was delighted with herself.

Maia and her good friend Claire.

Maia and Claire spent about 20 minutes running around the lobby, stopping briefly to look at this snowman, and back off and running again. They were delighted that they had "matching" sparkly shoes. Maia's were silver, and Claire's were red sparkly. I overheard Claire's mother remark: Oh, maybe I just need to get another 2-year-old to keep her busy at home!
After all the running, we brought the kids back to their classrooms to get ready for the concert. They kindly called it a sing-a-long, this year, as the singing is optional with some kids, once they have all those people to look at. Okay. Let's be honest here. The singing is optional with Maia.
The preschool class sang a song and told some jokes. Then toddlers came in and sang a few more songs. Maia, my Child-of-the-Nonstop-Singing-at-Home did not sing. She stood there, looking rather like a deer in the headlights with her jingle bell attached to her wrist.
Then she saw me, and thought maybe she'd like to head in my general direction, but she ended up on her teacher's lap.

Maia and her teacher, Miss Maria.

I tried soooo hard to get into a place where I could take some pictures or video, but as soon as the toddlers walked in, there was a crush of parents all trying to do the same thing. I'd get my shot lined up and a parent would surge forward right in front of me. I'm sure I did the same to the parents behind me. But alas... I got no good pics of the event itself.

But here's Parker and Papa.

Grandma, Maia and Papa.

Maia and Grandma Alma (aka Gramma Elmo)

The kids visit Grandma Alma regularly; she apparently reads to the kids at least once a week. Earlier this year, the daily sheets which would tell me the kids went to visit Grandma Alma today started to tell me that Grandma Elmo read the kids a story.
This was, interestingly, the second time in a week we'd run into Grandma Alma. Both times, Alma seemed quite pleased to see Maia, and Maia pleased to see her. I may not have been paying very close attention, but I did not see Alma greet a lot of other kids this way.
After the event: Punch and Cookies in the lobby.

Maia and Ellie

Maia and her (new) good friend, Ellie. Ellie knows how to get her picture taken, and was happy to mug for me as Maia kept talking and running with her punch-and-cookies. They're not looking... but at least they're relatively still! Ellie is the other child who has been described as having a "spicy personality" as Maia has been described by her teachers. We took about 10 of these family pictures. Parker is smiling in most of them, Maia is smiling in almost none of them, and Ray and I are in various states of distraction. Oh... Little Miss Silent-on-Stage? Yeah. She sang the whole way home.