Dancing with my Daughter

So we had the Queenager's graduation ceremony on Saturday. Being the school that it is, the speeches were both funny, irreverent and touching. There were only 82 kids in the graduating class, which is a VERY small number in the States. This meant that every student was called across the stage individually and received their own personal appluase.

In the evening family and graduates had a party on a roof deck at the end of Navy Pier in Chicago. The weather for the three days last week when we needed it to be great, was suitably miserable. The graduation party started out a little wet, but the kids didn't care and were soon out on the terrace dancing to the DJ's picks. As soon as the drizzle stopped, the wimpy parents stepped out to watch the kids. Inevitably, one of us (who shall remain  nameless) sidled up to the DJ and asked for "something from the 80's" and before you knew it, the floor was packed with 40-something's doing their thang.

At past parent/child dances, the kids by this time, would have been seen fleeing to the far corners, muttering about embarrassing, unhip parents. This time however, we all ended up in a huge circle with parent and unembarrassed child taking a turn in the middle - together. One dad was so touched he talked about it later with tears in his eyes. Although that could have been the margeritas!

All very cringy in retrospect, but the chance to dance with my Queenager (without being made fun of)- priceless.