Of Mouse and Boy

In Kodiak you have to be five years old to play team soccer, or little league t-ball, or take summer swimming lessons. But you can take dance classes starting at age three. Lucas will make his stage debut as a baby mouse in the party scene of this year’s Nutcracker on December 8. (Note: the Nutcracker is an every-other-year community tradition going back to around 1985. I was in it one year, as an icicle. Admittedly a supporting role, I was not much of a dancer).

I am very pleased with Lucas’ grey crushed velvet costume with the smattering of sparkle. When my nephew Yasent went through his Nutcracker rite of passage a few years ago, his costume was a black spandex unitard with pink sequins around the collar and sleeves. One of the other mothers denounced the pink adornment as emasculating to the boys, and so it all had to go. My sister removed all those pink sequins and hand-sewed 300 silver sequins in their place. I don’t know if I would have been such a good sport, had I been faced with that situation. Thankfully, I just have to concentrate on coaching my little mouse on choreography such as “tiptoe run” and “step – together – step” and “shake a leg”. It’s going to be great.