Mammen Mania

End-of-Year Preschool Drama...ahem...I mean, Excitement

From this....To this 9 months later....

Sunday night we had our little end-of-year preschool party. We had a cute little program planned including "The Little Red Hen" play the kids had been practicing all month for, awards, a song performance, and finger foods and dessert at the end. Overall, it was a fun night and the kids did a cute job.

....and then of course there was Janelle in center stage.

To start the afternoon off, she came home from church exhausted. I knew that if she didn't get a small nap in, the night would end up being nothing but drama (Moms always know best!). So she slept from 4-5:00pm (something I NEVER let her do!). After she got up she was still a little grouchy, but I knew she'd brighten up as soon as her friends arrived.

We decided to have the kids perform the play the very first thing so that they were focused and could hopefully remember their lines before there were too many distractions.

Our Stars:
The Little Red Hen..........Janelle
Baby Chick..........Tyler
Little Yellow Duck..........Josh
Big Orange Cat Jeffrey..........Jeffrey
Little Black Dog..........Ben

The kids started out great, and then about a third of the way into it Janelle just lost it because she didn't have real feathers. She had a complete meltdown right there in front all the families - as 3 video cameras can all prove. Remember, Janelle was the Little Red Hen...kind of an important part! At that point, she announced that she was done and walked "offstage." Since I was the narrator, I made a split-second decision to just say her lines so that the rest of the very well-behaved little actors could finish their parts. Throughout the rest of the play Janelle wandered in and out, saying lines here and there whenever she decided to grace us with her presence. The rest of the kids deserve Oscars for their very dramatic performances and their ignorance to Janelle's craziness! The grand finale ended with Janelle and Josh fighting over a bread pan - at least it brought a lot of laughs!!!

What can I say? There's something about Janelle being in center stage that brings out the drama in her.

(I have to explain that when Janelle is tired she touches her belly button. I'm not quite sure why, she's done it since she was a baby, but that's what she's doing in this picture and why her shirt is halfway up.)

Here are the kids watching the cute video Cindy made of them. She asked them what their names were, how to spell their names, what their favorite letter was, and what their favorite part of preschool was. Funny, they all answered that snacktime was their favorite part of school.

The artwork completed throughout the year. (Janelle's is right in the middle.)

Janelle received the "Preschool Princess" award for being the only girl among 4 boys and ensuring some form of girliness during class. Pink and purple were always the crayon colors of choice during art time and you could often hear her telling the boys to be the prince and rescue her during playtime.

After awards the kids sang, "My Favorite Things" and did a GREAT job (despite Janelle's dancing in and around all the other kids)! I was so proud of them! (I tried uploading a video, but for some reason it's taking forever, so I'll keep trying to get it up.)

Once we'd eaten our cake, our preschool guests were gone, and the dust had settled, I realized Janelle had had a fever the whole night. Poor thing! Fortunately it wasn't anything a little Tylenol and a good night's sleep couldn't fix.

Can't wait for more preschool fun in the fall!