In response to our inquiry for a playdate, some friends let us know that they'd love to play but their girls were participating in a 4 day musical camp/production, but maybe Ava would like to join them?
I told them I'd ask, but I had my doubts. Ava has expressed interest in theater before but just felt too shy when it came right down to it. And while she has a lovely voice, she'd gotten self conscious about anyone hearing her.
So that's why I was rightfully shocked but thrilled when she decided she'd actually like to do it.
It was intense. There were 4 days of practice (Wed-Sat), 5 hours per day, with a performance on Saturday night. Which, as many hours as that sounds, it was still a stretch to learn a solo and two group songs as well as speaking lines.
But Ava showed up and worked hard and came home and worked more.
She read through the script before the first practice and thought of the different characters she'd like to be. And when she came home that first day, she was so excited to tell me she was going to be one of two (not so sweet) Tooth Fairies.
She practiced her solo over and over. And to her credit, the song was not easy. The woman putting this on wrote the script and all the music herself. She is amazing. But Ava's song, "My Collection", was one where the melody wasn't exactly easy to hear in the accompaniment.
Even so, by that last day, Ava had a pretty good handle on it.
Early Saturday morning, Ava was beside my bed sobbing.
She was sick. And if there's one thing we've learned as Ava's parents these past 10 years, it's to believe her when she says she's sick.
I couldn't believe it. A very similar thing kept her from performing in our ward talent show just after we'd moved to Colorado. This seemed so ironic and so not fair. She had worked so hard. And she was more distraught about missing the show than she was about being sick. Still, I held out hope.
Much of their practice hours had been outside in the sun, and since she really had no other symptoms, I was thinking maybe it was combo of sunstroke and being overly tired.
But by mid morning, she was curled up on the couch with a fever.
We just kept praying that even if she couldn't be miraculously healed, that she could at least be well enough to perform.
I arranged for her to go that evening about an hour before the performance instead of in the afternoon for the 5 hour practice beforehand. Luckily she had her parts down, so missing the practice wasn't the end of the world. I dosed her up with Tylenol and dropped her off.
As we came back for the show that night, hoping she was still in one piece, Max, on his own, said he'd like to say a prayer for her. Now Max might currently be in one of his most annoying, button-pushing phases to date, but it's moments like these that remind me how sweet and good he is at his core.
His prayer worked.
When we got there she was so excited.
The play was super cute and all of our kids loved every minute.
Ava said her lines and sang her song and did great. She didn't even seem that nervous. Or sick, luckily.
After the show, we had promised a special celebratory treat, but instead of dinner at a restaurant, we settled for milkshakes in the car so we could get Ava home to rest sooner.
Her first stop was the couch, tired but proud.
And Monday morning our first stop was the doctor because she still wasn't better.
Turns out our little Tooth Fairy had strep throat.
On Wednesday, as we literally said goodbye to a couple of new friends who had come to play, Max ran over to the couch and said he was sick.
Two hours later he was like this.
A trip to urgent care confirmed the obvious:
He had strep throat.
And so did I.
I texted our new friends to apologize for unknowingly inviting them over to get strep. I haven't heard a word back so I'm thinking they might have moved quickly from new friends to not friends.
The next day the rest of the boys tested positive as well.
We drove home, a van-full of strep.
Dan was the only one to escape. But a few days into our antibiotics, we were all as good as new and still humming "My Collection".
3 comments:
How did Dan escape the plague? Glad you are all feeling better and that Ava was able to perform and have a successful experience in theater. We saw The Little Mermaid at Hale Center Theatre last week - Cam said it was the best play he'd ever seen. It really was spectacular - I wish you and Ava could have been there.
Oh, I wish we could have been there too! And we don't know how Dan got so lucky, other than maybe spending most of his days outside of our germy house?
Wow! Way to go, Ava, for powering through, even with strep! Glad you guys are on the mend.
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