Emily's dance recital

Emily had the first showing of two shows for her dance recital last night. We have one little girl in the class who is WAY too young to be there, but the parent's pushed and got their way. She's darling and tries her best, but she's just nowhere near the same level as the other girls. We knew she'd kind of be doing her own thing, but no one expected the audience to enjoy it to the point of laughing through most of the performance. You can see Emily falter when the first laughs come through (she told me afterwards she thought everyone was laughing at HER at first), and she never fully recovers from it. She's stone-faced instead of smiling, and by the end, the laughter from the audience has gotten contagious, and the little gal causing it all is enjoying the heck out of things and is REALLY hamming it up. Em's in giggles and almost not even dancing by the end. I guess it is what it is (and maybe today will go better), but I was disappointed on behalf of the other girls who worked really hard and took it seriously, only to have the audience laughing the whole time... Their group did get the biggest applause of the night, though, so that's something! ha!