Would you, could you, in a box?

The other night, we drove the long and winding road to Evergreen, to see a production called "Zeussical Junior", put on by evergreen's children's chorale. Now, let me just tell you right up front, this is a community that cares about its junior stage productions. There were acrobats, jugglers, ballerinas, fancy candy-colored stage lighting, a band, and some of the wickedest costumes I've seen in a while (Thing 1 and Thing 2 were to die for!).

Someone...no, a LOT of someones have put an awful lot of work into this production.

Possibly the biggest surprise of the evening, however, was that our niece Victoria, who's 8 now, has made a transition. For the past several years, since she was four or five, Victoria has had a "camera face" - a standard pose, complete with big, stagey, pageant smile and artfully-cocked head, that she has put on every time she noticed a camera pointed at her. She's very used to having her picture taken - I've followed her around with my camera, snapping pretty much constantly every time we've had a few hours alone with her...at the zoo, at the icecream shop, at her piano recitals, etc. But this time, out of the blue, I noticed something different. Apparently, she's decided to be au naturel in front of the camera. Here she is with M, looking so natural you'd think she was bored. Which she wasn't.

With M behind the camera, however, she lost all of her soignée composure and started to giggle.

Totally dissolved in laughter. So much for the new photo-face.
But I like the change. Victoria's personality is a force unto itself. She is the most confident, social and utterly open kid I know, and she doesn't need to hide behind that pageant smile. I can't wait to see the young lady she's evolving to be....even if that means that, at some point, as she inevitably will, she realizes that we are not as unspeakably cool as she has always assumed we were. Even if she leaves us in the dust and rolls her eyes when we make a joke we've made one too many times.

But for now, her uncle M is still the coolest cat in her universe, and she's still totally infatuated. For now, we can do no wrong, and she eagerly anticipates her next sleepover at our house, which, if we're lucky, will be Thursday.