Longest 20 Seconds of the Week

The weather is crazy beautiful in AZ this week. Chilly in the mornings, sunny and 70's by afternoon, cool and breezy at night.

This week the kids got their solos for their choir's fall concerts and have been practicing all week long. The director is amazing and does all this extra work for this ministry out of the kindness of her heart, and I can't even begin to imagine how insanely busy she is between home schooling her kids and managing this ministry. That being said, she goofed up Bella's solo. She assigned the wrong solo to Bella via email so when it came time for her solo she was completely shocked. Luckily, it was just practice, but if you know my introverted, type A, perfectionist firstborn child, this was terrifying. Why couldn't she have goofed Jacob's instead? There she stood in front of 30 peers with a microphone in her hand and her teacher coaxing her to sing a solo which she had fervently practiced all week long just to have the completely wrong verse! Okay, now imagine her mother's terror as I stood at the back of the room filming this scene for her father. Those crazy mother thoughts started rolling in....

"Oh man, I can not wait to show this to Albert when he gets home! This is so entertaining!" TOTALLY KIDDING! This is what I would have thought if it were Jacob instead of Bella, because in the word's of the great Sy Robertson, Jacob's "like an owl... [he] don't give a hoot!"

Seriously, here were the mile-a-minute thoughts:

"Stop! Stop! Stop! This is all wrong! YOU assigned the wrong words!"

"Oh Snap! Just grab the kids and run. These people don't really know us anyway."

"I should stop filming. Wait, no, if I stop then she'll know something's wrong. Just keep smiling and thumbs upping her."

"Maybe she's just fine and I'm overreacting."

"Lord, I pray she doesn't cry."

"Why did I encourage them to take solos?"

"Failing in front of large groups is just a rite of passage, right?"

"Don't pass your own emotions onto your children."

"It's all my fault. I should have double checked. This verse didn't play twice in the original song, I should have known."

This solo was TEN MINUTES LONG! I could have passed out and woken up and the dang thing would still be going on. Luckily, it wasn't the last song they practiced so I had time to gather my thoughts and observe Bella before the danger of making an irrational decision. I decided the only benefit in mentioning the goof was to save face (mine and Bella's) which is totally selfish. I don't know the director well, but I do know she has the biggest heart for these children and the orphans around the world (this song "No Orphans" is the key song for the ministry after all). I know she would have felt terrible about it, and to me, saying "WE REALLY DID PRACTICE AND BELLA IS AMAZING AT HER ORIGINAL SOLO!" was not worth making this sweet woman feel bad. I decided to pull Bella in real close, rub her back gently, and whisper in her ear. It went a little something like this:

"Hey Bella?"
"Ya Mom?"
"Ms. Angelique accidentally assigned you the wrong solo, huh?"
"Yeah."
"I am so sorry you worked so hard practicing those lines just to be surprised with different words. Sometimes those mistakes happen. You know what though? You did AWESOME! I am so proud of you for improvising and winging the new words. You are so much braver than I ever was! It was like you had been practicing those correct words all week long and I couldn't even tell you were confused and I bet nobody else could either, it was THAT good!"
"Really?"
"Yep!"
"I was so nervous I was shaking" she says with a smile on her face.

She saw me filming and thought I was snapping pictures. She asked many times that night to see the pictures and I kindly said no and quickly distracted her. The last request I snapped and said "NO! It's time for bed anyway." I was afraid she'd see the reality of the situation and notice that she didn't sing it perfectly and be terribly embarrassed. I wanted her to believe that nobody else in that room even noticed she didn't know her solo perfectly. I was afraid to watch it myself.

After the kids were tucked in, Albert grabs my phone and starts scrolling through my pictures, something he does periodically to catch himself up on our happenings. Then I remember our fiasco and the video. I tell him the story and we watch the clip.

"She did great!" Albert says.

Yes, she DID do great! And it really only lasted a few seconds? Really?

"Yes, but, you know Bella. She was already nervous about getting up in front of the class and having all eyes on her, so this must have been REALLY bad for her." That is the truth and I can say that confidently because nobody knows their child like a mother does.

"Man. That child is braver than I am." I'm realizing that being in that situation and overcoming it (in style at that!) was one of the best lessons she could ever have. We can't always protect them, but we can prepare them with awesome tools like flexibility, being confident in your best, and a good healthy sense of humor.

"She did practice the whole song many times over, of course she was going to be fine." Why didn't this run through my head when it was happening?

There's a fine line between allowing your children to experience their emotions on their own and guiding them to cope with difficulties in a healthy manner. It's also really hard to decide what healthy coping actually is as a 29 year old youngin' like myself. While I want to be careful not to impose what I think healthy emotional responses are, I do realize that by birthright they are Gutierri and they will likely deal with these kinda things like their parents do. After experiencing firsthand how our daughter handled one of her fears, I guess mostly I'm okay with them turning out like their old folk.