This was the first gymnastics recital I have been involved in as an adult. When I was a kid with a regular build, I competed (when I wasn’t faking an injury) at gymnastics so I felt for those athletes who were either a little too old to be sporting the leotard and inappropriately prancing around in front of their Grandparents or, weren’t going to be chosen for the next summer Olympic team and relied mostly on their bright smiles and bollywood musical accompaniment to get through what was likely a humiliating three minute routine.

My daughter is part of the filler recreational group that was book-ended by gymnasts competing at the national level. Thankfully, she was part of a group routine and they smiled from ear to ear in between frantic searches for their parents in the stands, followed by a series of excited waves changing the focus of their number from synchro-Christmas to hyper Elves.

The instructor told the girls to wear just the footless tights with the $2 Dollarama sticker still affixed to the tag and she would supply the rest of the outfit. By “outfit” she meant tight, wife-beater tank-tops and see-through Dollarama white skirts with sharp, foil stars glued all over. There weren’t quite enough stars to mask the bright green Frog Princess underwear with adorable frogs my daughter was sporting underneath but with the hula hoops and sparkly ropes it actually looked as though the frogs may have been leaping in and out of the stars on the skirt which was surprisingly cool, if you like optical illusionastics which I discovered tonight, I do.