Little Ocho

Tuesday night the entourage gathered for Lydia's school program at Zion. She brought home a sheet a few weeks ago outlining the parts various students had been given and beside her name were the words "Sign Holder". Although I have been in church my whole life, I admit I was unfamiliar with the sign holder in the nativity story. My bad.

Once I was informed that being the parent of a "sign holder" meant I wasn't required to craft together some sort of costume, I was all about it. I figured there would be a point in the play where she would have to hold up a sign that had narrative significance like "No Room In The Inn" or "Call His Name Jesus" or "Six Geese A Laying". Something like that. I was wrong. There were 10 sign holders, each with a number printed on their respective signs. Our daughter drew the distinction of being number 8. They wove a countdown into different parts of the program and each time the children counted, the sign holders were to flip their number over. Sounds easy enough.

Dave and I sat with Nancy French during the performance. Big mistake. Her son was a shepherd. He did well enough I suppose but with all due respect, he walked out with his staff and headdress for one song. Number 8 had to be on call through every single scene. Sure, she might have gotten distracted a time or two and the number 8 might have been mysteriously absent on 3 of the 7 musical numbers. It's a lot of pressure being the number 8. I realize the parent of a shepherd might not be fully versed in all that being a sign holder entails. I guess I can't fault her for that. However, she started trash-talking me about the shepherds being better than the sign holders. She's lucky I was too busy laughing at my own child to take offense.

Seriously, all three of us sat on pins and needles every time they started to count. When she forgot, we giggled quietly. When she remembered, we wanted to bust out in applause. I was a proud mama. She was helped by the fact that number 7 started holding her number upside down halfway through. That boosted number 8's credibility tremendously.

On the way home, Dave crowned Lydia with the new moniker "Little Ocho". She was, and continues to be, very annoyed by it. That hasn't stopped either of us from calling her that. If you see her, you should try it out. You may think we're mean parents but really, we're just strengthening her resolve. Yep. It's all about character building around here.

Here she is. Our little ocho.