Definitely easier this year.

Caitlin received her five year trophy for dance tonight (which she's been hanging out for for three years) and it's sitting in pride of place on top of the entertainment unit, the equivalent in this house of sending it straight to the pool room. She danced well, I can see such a change from last year, much more precise and focused, and she coped very professionally when she slipped and fell in the evening performance doing ballet - just hopped up and kept going barely missing a beat. I seem to be having a "be proud of Caitlin" week, can't be helped, she deserves it :D Tap and Jazz both went off without a hitch at both the matinee and evening performances and ballet was without incident at the matinee too. I was in the audience for the evening one and helping backstage as usual for the matinee.

Five years of dance and five years of helping out backstage and this year, for the first time, I am NOT a quivering wreck at the end of the day. There are new mums coming in to help out with the younger kids and seeing as they are the ones that need the most help and supervision I found I was able to sit back a bit and enjoy the increasing independence of the older kids. It also helped immensely that this year we had a hairdresser backstage to help with all the changes of hairstyle, we mums did the easy ones and palmed the harder ones off on her ;-)

Here's my girl in her three different costumes - NB three completely different hairstyles as well, it's always good to have a challenge!

Tap

Jazz

Ballet