Dancing Bear Found Dead. Police Call Circumstances "Suspicious"

We had big plans yesterday, but they went all off the rails.

Yesterday was the day of the kindergartners' Big Spring Concert. It's not the kind of thing I usually get too excited about. Don't get me wrong, of course I like to see my kid be all adorable, but I'm not one of those nutty parents following her kid around with the video camera screaming "good job" all the time. Because, pardon me, ma'am, but as far as I can tell, going down the slide doesn't warrant accolades. I mean, you're essentially applauding gravity.

This concert, though, promised something different. The kids would be singing about bears and we were instructed to dress our sweet five year-olds in either black or brown. Because nothing says Spring like little children clothed in somber neutrals. Not only that, but Lauren's been practicing odd lyrics like Your heart may be breaking, but no one will care. Such is the life of a dancing bear. Kind of dark, but, ok, real life does get awfuly dark sometimes. Only, wait... then the stage direction is to make a slashing motion across your throat with your "finger knife." I'm sorry, your what?

And that is why I couldn't wait to check out this show. What kind of sick bastard is running this thing? Fantastic!

Of course, I did what I could to make Lauren look as cute as possible within the rules. I took Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face as inspiration and dressed Lauren in a l/s black crewneck, black capri leggings, flats, white socks, and pigtails.


Sadly, she was only at school for about thirty minutes before the school nurse, who is a sweet lady, but an overzealous diagnostician, got a hold of her and decided she had pink eye and needed to go home. I reminded the nurse that it was the day of the big show and I didn't see how it would really hurt anything to let her stay and do the suicidal bear routine, but the nurse, using her own special brand of logic, said that no, she had to go home and it would been in our best interest to keep her home for the rest of the week because what if she gave it to another kid and then it eventually got passed back to her. What? So we missed the big concert and $70 later, our doctor diagnosed Lauren with an eye that was kind of reddish. Which is entirely different from pink eye.

She's back at school today. Presumably doing much better than The Dancing Bear.