Seeing the Nutcracker

Last year, my mom mentioned she wanted to take the kids to see The Nutcracker. Lucy really got into ballet so Mom thought it would be a really special thing to share with them. I was a tad nervous that they were a little too young for it. There aren't any words in it and it can be a little long so I wasn't sure they'd "get" it. We did show them the Broadway one that was on Hulu last year to see what they'd think. Cara and Gwen seemed to think it was okay, but Lucy fell asleep halfway through it, haha.

We decided to skip it last year, but Mom was pushing for it this year, so I figured we could give it a shot (she tugged at my heart strings when she told me she remembers going with her grandma growing up and it's one of her favorite memories). On the drive to the theater, while they ate their snacks (since the show was around lunch time so I let them grab a bunch of snacks to keep them happy until afterwards),  I explained the story to the girls and told them you'll see the story, not hear it, since it's a ballet. Luckily, we got there early enough to grab seat boosters, hit the bathrooms, and mom got a Nutcracker souvenir (she wanted to take Trax, but I convinced her we would be able to find parking fine enough, which we did).

When we got to our seats, I had mom sit at one end, I sat at another, and the girls sat on their booster seats between us (there was a lady in front of us that kept looking funny at Lucy and then finally told me that we needed to get another booster for her since she's so small. She was so insistent that she even offered to go grab one for us, but no one sat in front of me so I knew she could sit with me or trade me places). Throughout the play I noticed Lucy did have to shift back and forth some to see the stage, so I figured after intermission I'd switch for her. During Intermission we did bathroom runs and when we got back I told Lucy I was trading with her, but then someone was sitting in the seats, so I gave her my coat to boost her up just a little more.

Luckily, the show wasn't as long as I thought, but they did get a little antsy towards the end. However, when it was over they all said they LOVED it and wanted to see it again. I'm so glad they did like it, Mom definitely wants to do this more as a fun tradition, and it sounds like they'd like to. We probably wouldn't do it EVERY year, but every other or few years would be fun.