Photos 180-182/365 (series: Stratford!)

One of our favorite places to visit: Stratford, home of Canada's annual Shakespeare Festival. This is another family tradition going on seven years now, including the best old style motel with pool, Shakespeare and musicals, and ice cream every day from the sweetest little shop in town. This year the weather was perfect for swimming, and that's about it, other than seeing shows inside an air conditioned theater, that is. With a daily heat index in the triple digits (yes, even in Canada!), we weren't doing much of our usual wandering around town. Our 2018 line up? Shakespeare's Tempest, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Music Man. 

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Opening night of Calvin's shows is my favorite date night of the year (sorry anniversary, birthdays, and all the other usual culprits). It's the culmination of months of work, weeks of blood, sweat, and tears, and a very emotional, very exciting moment truth. They always pull it off, it's always wonderful, but the natural nerves before the show add to the intensity of the evening. Many backstage parents love to work the opening night, to be there in the midst of the jitters it brings, but for the me the evening represents a sigh of relief; my hardest part is over, let's celebrate with a dinner for two and tickets to a show with a very special performer (our very special performer)! It feels indulgent. It feels decadent. It's my favorite date night of the year.

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The long stretch of tech week begins...

I never imagined I would become a theater parent, or rarely think about what that means, or if it means anything, in fact. But it means something. It means hours and hours of work, not just on Calvin's part, and not just the driving to and fro—even though it definitely does mean that, and dinners in the car between events and rehearsals, and meal planning, vacation planning, event planning around rehearsal times—for me it means hours of designing and sewing, and redesigining and resewing. For other parents it's set design or hair and makeup. Whatever suits their fancy, it means hours and hours of it. And then the tech week rehearsals, with theater call from 4:45 to 9 at night, and an earlier start if something needs stitching or patching or fixing in some way. It means organizing rides to and from, and meals for the family member left out at home. It means dropping into bed at night exhausted and not being able to sleep because your head is still ringing with the sound of children's voices. And I'm an introvert.

But it also means something else. It means supporting my son in a very tangible, very obvious way in doing something he loves, and it means sharing that time, those moments, that love with him. And for that I am eternally grateful, even if it did interrupt Mother's Day. 

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Practicing for an upcoming stage audition (he's singin "Agony" as Cinderella's Prince from Into the Woods)...