Lucy in the sky

Look at this maniac.  This is my daughter.  She is the most amazing, beautiful, fascinating female I've ever met.  She also drives me completely insane.  Incredibly shy, yet powerfully interested in being "on stage", she comes off sometimes as aloof and uninterested, and sometimes as the biggest, sweetest goofball you ever saw.

Last night was the Washington Park concert, one of my very happiest times of summer.  I had planned on staying late and having fun.  But Lucy was a bit troublesome last night, requiring a lot of concentrated attention, breaking down and crying over several things.  I stood with her right down in the dance area, center stage to the entire park (save the people actually on stage) trying to convince her that I wasn't going to dance while she was crying and everyone was staring at us (probably in my mind, but nonetheless...)

She cried when I teased her, when a friend wanted to get in a picture with her, when someone bumped into her, when she couldn't have another cookie......  and on it went.  In between, of course, moments of glee, her throwing blankets into the air, asking me to braid the tails of several thousand My Little Ponies, and rolling down the hill with friends and neighbors.  But there was a lot of frustration too...a lot of tears, a lot of pouting.

Yet, as we walked hand in hand back home, (leaving earlier than I wanted to because she needed to get to bed or maybe it was that I needed her to go to bed) she said, looking up at me sweetly, "Wasn't that the best night ever?"

Go figure.