And the winner is. . .

So I entered Gracie in a little talent show kind of as a last minute thing. I have been hoping to have her participate with this theater group's next jr. performance, so when I saw the posting for their talent show, I signed Gracie up. I try not to be a pushy mom, but after seeing Gracie's competition at the dress rehearsal, I was really disappointed that she would probably not be winning. We gave her the good sportsmanship talk and really pushed the "we're proud of you" and "being your best self" bit (and I tried to get a grip and realize that not everybody has to think my daughter is as great as I think she is).

We really worked with Gracie and she did a great job. She has a great little voice. She could use a little bit of work, sure, but for being 6 and the youngest kid in the competition, she was dang cute. And so confident. And lucky. She won the raffle basket with the 18 inch doll in it. Then it was time to announce the winners. When they announced 3rd place, I had a twinge of disappointment and had to revert to my aforementioned self talk. Well, we would take Gracie out for ice cream and tell her how awesome she is, etc, using all the tricks I learned from my mom. (My mom is the best for having around if you win or lose anything! Unfortunately, she was in Hawaii and unavailable for working her pep talk magic over a bowl of ice cream.) And at least Gracie had the doll.

So I was so busy plotting my pep talk that I almost missed the announcement of the 1st prize winner. It took me a second because it wasn't the name of the girl that I thought it would be. No, it was my very own Gracie! Apparently, young and cute goes very far! She even won a cash prize. We are so proud of Gracie!

Gracie was excited, and felt good about her performance, but she was positively elated over the doll. Maybe I shouldn't have worried so much about the pep talks.