Girls rule, Boys drool

This is me with my beautiful date for the ballet.



This is where we went.


Moments before the lights went down and the curtain went up.



It was a family tradition of sorts for my Dad to take us all to the Nutcracker. We'd get dressed up best we could, go out to s sit-down restaurant, and then take our places in the box seats for the ballet in Houston.

Mama made it possible for me to carry on this tradition with Reanie, and with no apologies whatsoever, I can say from the bottom of my heart that this was my second best Reanie day ever (the day she was born being the first).

During the drive to the Hall, we talked about the ballet, but I wasn't quite able to convince Reanie that she wasn't in this ballet, but instead, that we were going to watch it. At one point she almost got it when she said that she was going to watch me "ballet."

As we mingled among the patrons of the ballet at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, we saw a few other Daddy's with their girls. Making eye contact with those Dads, the unspoken word shared between us was that this really is as good as it gets.

Reanie was on the receiving end of so many "Oohhh's" and "Aahhh's" that is was almost uncomfortable, but one of the highlights for me was that she was holding my hand as we walked through the lobby because she took my hand, and not the other way around.

We went to the bar and ordered a Pellegrino and an oatmeal cookie. We shared the water and put the cookie in her purse, as we intended to break the rule of "No food allowed in the Box seats."

She spent most of the first act not in her seat, but instead, standing with her head resting on her arms on the brass rail in front of us. She turned to me at one point, and I thought she was going to say something, so to make sure she whispered I put me ear near her face so she could talk to me. But she kissed me on the cheek instead.

When intermission came, she wasn't ready for the performance to be over, and it was tough to explain that we still had the second act to go. So, instead of leaving to walk around a bit, we stayed put and munched on the cookie.

She was a little fidgety in the second act, but it was confined to climbing in my lap to watch, standing at the rail, and sitting in her seat. She very nearly stole the show for those in the boxes adjoining ours when about 2/3's the way through the second act that she moved her chair and started doing the ballet positions she knows, complete with whispering what they are.

I cried, because that was my girl.