The Family Clause

Another event that through our schedule was Zorah's performance in The Family Clause. Almost every Friday for the past 12 weeks, Z has spent four hours at the Winchester Cultural Center here in Vegas rehearsing for this musical. During this last week leading up to the two performances, there have been rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals.

Anyway, Wednesday was the dress rehearsal. I brought our old video camera because I wasn't sure how much room there would be on my regular digital camera. I taped then because I knew that on Thursday's performance night I probably wouldn't be able to get really good shots of Zorah's scenes. Thursday night I brought the camera again, thinking that you can't have too many tries at it. Plus, I could edit all the footage to take whatever came out best. As a backup, I also used my digital camera. Good thing. Saturday when I went to download the footage from the video camera, all I got was blue screen for the whole time. The camera was broken. What do you expect with a 10 year old video camera, I suppose. I felt rather stupid for not testing it before taping. So of course I threw it out immediately in a fit of pique.

The actual performance went well, but Zorah was really stressed out after the first performance. Apparently she had slipped backstage and was convinced that the other kids were laughing at her. She was so upset she wasn't sure she wanted to be in the performance the next night. I wasn't sure what to tell her. I didn't want to make her do it, but I also didn't want her to give up on it because of one mistake. Brian drove, she sat on my lap, and I just held her. I told her to wait until tomorrow to decide.

For the second performance we decided on having me stay backstage in the dressing room so that if she needed me I would be there. Things went pretty smoothly until the end of the play when Zorah missed her bow. One of the directors of the play had Zorah bow with her, which Z said made her feel special. She was embarrassed, though, and wondered if people knew she had made a mistake. I told her that most people in the audience would have been too busy focusing on their child to notice, but that those who did would undoubtedly be more concerned with how cute she was than if she had been meant to bow with Miss Susan.

Where do we get the idea that mistakes are bad? When and how do we learn that being wrong is bad? Why do we think that we have to be right all the time? How can we unlearn these things? Maybe if I could allow myself to say that I'm wrong (regardless of whether I really believe that I am), it would show Zorah that it's okay not to be perfect. It can't be very convincing when I say it's okay to make a mistake and then make excuses when I fudge something, etc.