Good things come in small packages

Or in tight quarters.

Case in point:
I saw my first two-layer parking garage downtown.

See the white car hiding in the upper left?

Also a small package? The "flip the switch on, light bulb moment" in regards to this crazy winter production I'm putting on.

Rewind to August: I felt like after five years of putting on multiple programs a year, I knew what it took for kids to learn songs, moves, and lines. Secure in that knowledge, I decide to wow the socks off of these guys over here. 

Fast forward to present day: I'm 30 calendar days away from show time, and I'm feeling the "panic mode" amping up. 

See, what I didn't take into account was that while I was growing as a teacher/ring-leader the last 5 years, my wonderful and lovely students were growing with me. They knew the score and what was expected, and we delivered some great things together. 

These new kiddos have never had me and have never done what I'm trying to do. 

They've never even been on risers. !

This is also the first time this year that while these kids are great at participating in music - singing, playing, talking about, notating, reading, following folk dance instructions - they are still doing so in a secondary, tertiary, or even quarternary language! When I'm throwing out fast-paced lyrics and tons of them, all of a sudden this fact is very apparent. 

So! 

The moral of the story is that I'm learning a lot. :o)

And that I love what I do.