Home Sweet Home

We're back from Seattle! I missed my furbaby, Spirit, along with the other two so much. She was meowing when I walked in the door and just wanted to be held.

The feis was great. Even though I felt like I was just trying to get through it with a smile on my face (still not feeling well, but the cough is going away finally), the kids did great. Finn placed in his three dances (two only had two competitors though) and won a third place trophy. Mackenna placed in a bunch of her dances plus she won a fourth place trophy in the Treble Reel Special. Her second time competing in that dance and her first time placing! The best part is she learned a very important lesson during that competition.

She had checked in early and was practicing the second step that she'd just learned. She knew she was competing with older girls (U11 when she normally competes U9) and was a little nervous.

A little background for those not familiar with Irish dance, the treble reel is my favorite competition to watch. The girls line up around the stage. One by one, the come forward, do their hard shoe steps, get back in line and when everyone has danced, everyone does the same step. In the Championship level, people clap and it's just a really fun dance to watch.

Anyway, so Mackenna was in line. The third dancer, if I remember correctly. She stepped out when she was supposed to, started when she was supposed to and then stopped. She'd started with her second step, the one she'd been practicing. She sighed and took a step back to the line, but the judge told her to start over. Mackenna did and nailed the dance.

Some times when things go wrong, dancers lose it right there on stage. Crying and sobbing aren't rare during feis. It happened to my daughter at a feis in California and we almost decided to stop putting her in competitions after that. Our rule-if it's not fun we're not going to do it. This was one of those times where she could have cried, but instead she held it together.

When she came off the stage, she sat down by me. She said she knew she wasn't going to place and wanted to go. I told her that the way she held herself together on-stage and danced after making the wrong start meant she'd won no matter what score the judge gave her, but I explained that it was good sportsmanship to cheer on the other dancers who'd competed against her. So we stayed and waited for the results to be read and she won a fourth place trophy! Afterwards, she told me, "Mommy, I just know if I would have started crying she [the judge] would have never let me dance again."

Link for the day: The Treble Reel! This is a treble reel from a performance, not a competition, but you'll get the idea. In a competition, they don't dance together at the beginning, there are more dancers and the dancers move out from the line to do their steps.