Lunch with a Superstar

I make it no secret that I'm super proud of my daughter, Cloudya. She's a beautifully talented little girl whose also signed with an agent in Chicago. Last month her yearly activities started up full swing again. She takes ballet, guitar lessons, joined orchestra this year and is in the school All-Star choir. Sounds like she's busy as is, but than there's the auditions that occurred at the beginning of the year as well. Of course she landed a role in the Omaha Ballet Theatre's professional production of the Nutcracker. This will be her second year in the cast, but it will monopolize most of her "free" time from now until December.

After a packed summer of movie and commercial auditions, I began to become concerned that I was becoming one of "those" parents. We've all heard of them. Those parents who push their kids to follow the dreams they could never obtain. I've always sworn that I would make her stop once she said that she didn't like it anymore. I've heard the grumblings a couple different times this year, so I've been on high alert.

While talking to Cloudya after she finished her American Girl audition, I asked her if she had fun and her answer was yes. Okay, so that relieved me a little, but nothing like what happened today. Kaiden and I decided we would join her for lunch at school and as soon as her classmates saw us the questions started. They asked about the different movies she had auditioned for and if she knew anything yet about her audition in Chicago. One of them asked if they could go see her in the Nutcracker and wanted to know what nights she would be performing. Another little boy was interested in the fact that Cloudya has decided she would like to attend Kid's Eye this summer. It's a film camp for kids her age sponsored by the Rhode Island Film Festival. I overheard one little girl telling another one sitting across from her that Cloudya was famou,s because she does movies and stuff. This statement made me chuckle. The girl then questioned Cloudya about it and she responded with, "I am famous now."

My first reaction was, "Wow, what a little diva." Of course, her nickname around the house has become just that. Famous-well I don't know about that yet; she's still got a long way to go before that happens. However, it was a relief to hear that she had been talking the subject up with all her little friends at school. I knew that she is proud of all her hard work she's been doing and in the long run knows it will pay off. She's also super excited to be rejoining all her ballet friends for this year's production.

For now though I'll still have my guard up, watching for the signs. In the mean time, we probably should have a little discussion about dropping the word famous. Of course, to all of us who love her she already is.