Fort Lewis Elementary School Talent Show (2015)

Last year, Tyson performed in FLES Talent Show (2014), with his buddy Brendan. They did a magic and joke show. Lilah was so in awe and said that when she was in Kindergarten, she was going to do the Talent Show too.  This year, when the school sent the paperwork home, for the kids to sign up, if interested, Lilah immediately said, "I'm doing it!" 

Lilah chose to perform to a remake of the song "RUDE". The song and video was re-created by a little girl named Angelic, to be more kid friendly and cute.  

Our assistant pastor's daughter, Kayla, was so kind to choreograph a dance, to the song, for Liley. Kayla spent several hours with Lilah, the day of her 6th birthday party, to teach her the dance. The first day she learned the dance, Lilah performed the dance in front of Pastor Eddie, as well as, our entire family + Cami. Kayla also came over the night before the Talent Show to review it with Lilah. Kayla was on the dance team at JMU and is an incredible dancer, so I thought she would be PERECT for this task. KAYLA, we are still so, so thankful for your help.

These two youtube videos are Lilah's practice videos.

The night before the talent show, Lilah called up Jake (Ty's friend) and asked if he would come watch them perform.  Jake said "Yes!" I thought this was a great sign of her excitement and willingness to go through with performing.

The night of the talent show, Tyson, as usual was as calm as could be. Lilah started showing signs of nerves. The microphone wasn't wireless and she hadn't practice with a microphone that had a wire, so I think she was worried about getting caught up on it.  I tried to see if the school had a wireless microphone, but they didn't.  Lilah and Ty's act was 5th in line.  During the 4th act, Lilah came up to me and said, "I'm not doing it!"  I said, "Oh honey! There's no turning back now.  You have to do it.  You made a commitment and your brother has been sitting here, willing, and waiting in a wig/mustache for almost an hour.  You can do this!" That small "pep talk" seemed to have worked.  

And then it was show time! "And now, performing to the song Rude, is Tyson and Lilah Bolling!"  I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking SOOOOO bad, I could barely snap photos, much less video record it.  Darren had the video camera, so I tried to stay focused on just watching it and taking what pictures I could, with an unsteady hand. Ty got up on stage and set Lilah's props into place (the dog house and the microphone).  And the song began.

Ty's job/role was to pretend he was Lilah's daddy! Lilah's role/job was to BEG for a puppy (she was his daughter).  Ty would consistently tell Lilah no and she would sing, "Why you gotta be so rude, you know he [the puppy] has feelings to!" Lilah came out just as Kayla told her to and in my opinion, she did NOT seem nervous at all.

Lilah came running out! She seemed confident and ready.  Then, from 0-35 seconds, she went from HAPPY/READY to CRYING/UNWILLING.  At first, I was a little unsure what was happening.  I thought, "This isn't part of the act!"  LOL!  Then, I realized the joke was on me.

Her voice began crackling and she just stopped! Eeeeeeek! Needless to say, I did what ANY mommy would do...I ran up onto the stage and spoke to her.  My goal was to convince her to try it again, but she just couldn't do it.  Ty was very UPSET with her and I will be honest, I had to fight back anger myself (once I sat back down). She came so far and to stop in the middle of her song, made no sense to me.  Later, Lilah said, "I saw one of my friends in the audience and she was laughing, so I got embarrassed and shy!"  I'm sure her friend was NOT laughing at her, but rather excited to see Lilah on stage and just smiling and giddy. Lilah also stated that the microphone was way too loud and it startled her to hear her own voice that loud. In fairness to her, she didn't practice with a microphone on... so I can see how that could have been alarming to her.  When it was ALL over, many of her older peers, as well as audience members, teachers, and even her principal told her that she was VERY brave to even attempt it. One little old man said, "You have moves like I've never seen before!" LOL!  Ty said, "Lilah, I was so nervous for you, I was shaking."  Ty and I eventually let go of our embarrassment and frustration and realized that Lilah really was brave for being willing to at least try it. There was another performer who refused to go up on stage, then decided to try it (out of order), and then said no again.  So at least Lilah did actually make it to the stage. The video below kind of shows what happened. It was taken with my iPhone. I was shaking so bad, so the footage is poor. I also forgot to turn my phone off because I was so focused on rescuing Lilah and Ty from the stage, so the video goes on a lot longer than I would have allowed it to. 

I have better video footage that I will share eventually.  Darren has it on his video camera, but he isn't a fan of allowing others to see it because he thinks it may embarrass Lilah when she is older.  I think it's funny and believe that this is all part of her growing and learning process. The reality is...out of 40+ kindergarteners, only 3 signed up to do the Talent Show.  So in my opinion, she was more brave than 37 of her kindergarten peers.

***UPDATE: Darren uploaded the video for me and told me to do what I want with it!***  Isn't her little crackle voice and pout so sad and pitiful? I'm not sure who I feel worse for...her or Ty. He's such a trooper.

We still talk about the talent show and what happened that night because they have another opportunity to perform in the talent show, at school, on Field Day.  I remind Lilah that I was/am proud of her and that my initial feelings were incorrect.  I think I was just really surprised because Lilah has been in dance for 3 years and has performed in front of an audience 3 times the size of the audience that night. Performing in front of your peers is clearly much harder to do than performing in front of an audience of strangers.