Dream, Little Darling ... Dream

I had a date tonight. It was a special night. I took my four year old daughter to see the Nutcracker Ballet at the Krannert Center for Performing Arts. It was a night of first for us - our first time out together - just the two of us. The first time Emme was at Krannert. The first time she ever saw a ballet. The first time I went to see the Nutcracker after swearing at age 14 that I would never see it again.

You see - I hated it when I saw it. I didn't really understand it. I didn't understand why they were not talking. How was I suppose to follow a story without a narrative? And yet when the Nutcracker came to town, for some reason I felt compelled to take Emme. I'm not sure why? Perhaps it is because I feel like I don't do as much for or with Emme as I do for the boys. Or perhaps it is because I wanted Emme to know that there are different types of dancing, not just the sexy stuff you see on Dancing with the Stars. Or perhaps it was because I was wanting to see if I could sit through the Nutcracker one more time. I had a dream that maybe seeing it through the eyes of a child would make me understand it and why so many people flock to it each holiday season.

Tonight I was prepared. I did an extensive internet search to learn about the ballet. I told Emme at least three times the story about Nutcracker - emphasizing that the ballet was about a dream. I was prepared. Or so I thought. Emme understood the ballet. In fact, she brought to my attention that the story is not "told through words" but through the "instruments and the ballet dancers". What I hadn't counted on was Emme's fixation over the fact that the boys and men in the ballet wore tights. She just didn't understand. As she informed me during Act II, "Matthew would not like wearing tights" - and she right, he wouldn't. But, I wasn't prepared to explain the nature of male ballet costumes -- in part because I never quite understood why they wore tights. But, then as Emme sat snuggling in my lap, it dawns on her "it's a dream -- so really the boys aren't wearing the tights - it is just their costume in the little girl's dream. " But then - she sits straight up - concern on her face - "Mommy - does she want this dream to come true? Aren't dreams suppose to come true?" I didn't know what to say - not all dreams do come true, but does that mean you stop dreaming? Can parts of dreams come true? For Emme, she wanted the dream to come true - she wanted the ballerinas that were fairies to be real. But, she didn't want the boys in tights. In the car ride home, this perplexed her very much. She understood the dream, but she just wasn't sure that she liked it. It was then that I realized through her eyes that we could understand a dream, but not accept it. Or, we could accept a dream, but not understand it. I just wasn't sure which was better - I'm still not.

So, that best I could do for my Emme bear ... was to tuck her in, whispering dream little darling, dream ....