At 9 years old, a kid tries everything. There is no expertise. There is no rationale. A kid just tries whatever new hobby/craft/sport seems interesting. If a kid does field hockey? Sure, why not? Soccer? Yes, please! Theater camp? Sounds great. Art lessons? Absolutely (thanks Cici!). Swim team? Sign me up.

For Rosie, this means that the menu of options includes anything that her friends do, and recently, a good friend of hers got the acting bug. So, a 2.5 week acting camp it is!

A company called stage lights here in town does the production, and this time around they made a play out of the movie Madagascar.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, it’s a good one. I was very proud to see my daughter as a lemur. And a lioness. And a New Yorker in the zoo. Rosie stole the show.

It was neat to see what the group of kids put together over just two and a half weeks- Rosie often said camp was a bit hard, but she really enjoyed getting out to perform after putting in the work.

There were three performances, and Rosie got a great audience to come check it out. It was a lot of fun to see: the second time around was a bit better when the kids got a little more confident, and I knew what some of the funny parts were.

Minor Leagues

As a youngest child, I feel for Mercy. Rosie has a pretty eventful life. Mercy gets shuttled around from one thing to another to cheer her on. Mercy loves it- but also, this girl doesn’t get as many priorities on the family schedule. It’s easier to plan events and make friends for the first born- a little harder after that. Am I alone in this? Anyways, I digress…

Rosie had three performances. And, one of the kids in the play had a sister in Mercy’s daycare. Stay with me here. So at the last minute, learning it was princess night for our local Greensboro Grasshoppers, I asked the other dad if he had plans, he did not, and it worked. Just two dads. With two girls. On Princess night.

And Mercy was pumped: She got to play with a friend, Andrew and I got beers, and Mercy got to see some more princesses to get her fired up for Disney world in the near future.

Summer Camps

Theater camp was great, but I am not confident Rosie got the acting bug. She had fun, she did well, but I think she is gonna stick with dance as her thing. That’s what being 9 is all about.

At the end of one thing comes another: Back to the same camp she went to last year. The same camp her older cousins got to go to when they were her age. And after saying good bye to swim team this year (they got first in the Open championship, but second in the city meet) with another epic kids party:

Taylor made the long trek to drop off Rosie for the week, in about 94 degree weather.