Epic Toddler Meltdown On Stage

A few weeks back, I learned that Ellie would be having her first school "program" for Thanksgiving. She and her classmates would stand on stage and sing songs and be adorable and we would clap and I was totally thrilled. This is a big milestone. Especially since Ellie comes from a long line of performers. I am a musical theater girl and it thrills my heart when Ellie sings and dances with great confidence and gumption. I knew her passionate hand motions and gestures would be hilarious to watch. Her teachers have told me that she is always singing every word to every song and is just a hoot to watch. Grant took the morning off of work, and my mom came too to watch Ellie's first performance. We just knew she would give us the gold. 

Well. We were wrong about that.

Our first mistake was where we sat. Since Ellie is the tiniest of the tinies, we decided to sit on the 2nd row so we could get good pictures and be close up. But we were just too close, y'all. Ellie and her class filed into the Chapel and that's when she saw us. She saw me, Grant, and my mom. "GRAMMY!!!!!" she exclaimed as she let go of the rope her class was holding on to and ran straight to our pew. She crawled into Grammy's lap and decided that's where she wanted to stay. 

I tried to get her to go back to her class. I tried to get her onto the stage.

Nope. Nope. Nope. "My Grammy! My GRAAAMMMMYYY!"

I told her she was going to have fun and sing songs and Mommy would clap for her. 

This is your heritage. This is your legacy. THIS IS WHO WE ARE. STAND UP AND SING. 

My mom actually went and sat on the back corner of the stage and said "Grammy will sit right here, will you stand next to Grammy and sing?" 

"No, I sit with Grammy."

Here she is, clinging to Grammy. The terror in her eyes...

I tried to take Grammy's place so she could watch. 

This was unacceptable to our Ellie.

Here I am, trying to console her. 

(Side Note: the 2 beautiful ladies behind her in the red shirts are her teachers. THEY. ARE. SOLID. GOLD. I love them and Ellie loves them (she talks about them every single day) and I just needed to take a moment to say that God has blessed our girl with those women. I can't imagine the exhaustion they feel at the end of a day with all those 2 year olds. I feel exhausted after 2 hours with only one of them.  Plus, they are so loving and sweet and I feel 1000% confident leaving my child in their care. I'm so, so thankful. Okay, back to the meltdown.)

Staring at Grammy and Daddy and screaming.

At one point she laid down on the stage. Special memories.

I was laughing really, really hard at this point. Like, about to pee my pants. I finally just took her off the stage and put her right where she wanted to be: Grammy's lap. 

She watched her friends and did a lot of the motions from the pew with us. Honestly I was so surprised that it went down this way, but I can't wait to show her pictures of this when she is wanting to be front and center, star of the show as is bound to happen. She's a performer. I just know it. 

At one point, my friends Amanda and Raegan from a few rows behind me (who were laughing and giving me thumbs up as Ellie laid down on the stage with snot coming out of everywhere) hollered out to me "We want a blog about it! Write a blog!"

Oh, girls. I had already started writing it in my head. That moment I carried the toddler that was screaming like a wild banshee off the stage... that was when I started writing this blog.