Written By Kelly Silver
Oh well, my plan didn’t quite work out. I really did think that the four hour nap and 10pm tuck in would turn the girls around, but at 3am I heard Eliana whisper to Olivia to wake her up. If you’re going to be up at 3am, school can start at 3:30am (my words), so that’s what we did. We didn’t really get much done. Spelling for Olivia and Reading for Eliana. We had FaceTime with daddy and waited for the Call to Prayer. The girls were quite excited about hearing this at the crack of dawn. I’m still confused by how this works. I did watch a documentary about the Koran and Muslim beliefs before we left, but I wonder, what happens if you work a night shift finishing at 3 am. I guess you could stay up for the first calling, but do you, or are you allowed to miss sleep for the others during the day? The hotel staff here speak a very limited English, so getting any answers that don’t fit into the categories of room, food, or where to go, gets a little tricky.
We went to breakfast at 6:30am, as soon as it opened and then to the gym. The girls are obsessed with working out since we got here. The shuttle was picking us up at 9:30 this morning for transportation to rehearsal at the studio next to the theater.
We did get to look at the stage. It was massive, beautiful, impressive and exciting. I posted some pictures to Facebook of the girls on the stage. Quite a few comments said how brave Olivia is. I find it funny how people think that way. Being a performer myself, a huge theater is way less petrifying than a room in a restaurant, or anywhere else for that matter with 50 people you can see. A theater doesn’t have that personal connection where you feel the need to satisfy everyone in the room. There’s not the losing yourself in your role that you have in the theater. I asked Olivia if she felt concerned at all, ”of course I’m not” she said.
Olivia was only needed till 11am. I wanted to take them to the playground, but our shuttle was already booked back. This turned out to be a good thing. I got back to the room to continue homeschooling, but about twenty minutes into it both girls started to fade. I realized I wasn’t going to accomplish much at all, so I said we’ll sleep for an hour. The alarm went off and I couldn’t move. A useless mom is going to get noting done, so I turned it off and we slept for three hours.
We woke up refreshed, finished schooling and went back to the gym. This time at least I was comfortable having the girls around the equipment and I could work out myself. We came back to the room. Eliana put on her daily dance show, which we are obliged to watch. I asked Olivia and Eliana to think about what we’re missing this time on tour. We’ll be home for a month and can re-pack, so it’s a good opportunity to figure out how to make it even better. Eliana had one word to say “dad”. Olivia wants to pack her room.
I recommended going downstairs to see if any of the other cast members were there. The girls love hanging with them I still feel a little awkward, for a few reasons. I feel like I have to be very understanding that these are young adults enjoying their tour together and kids can be annoying, lovely or not, so I limit their time. Also, as much as I could hang, this isn’t my gig and my concentration needs to be on my girls, so like them, I’m limited too. This actually has it’s major upsides, look I’m writing this aren’t I? and hopefully I will end up with some great video footage too. We spent maybe an hour downstairs. I grabbed a drink, the girls got an ice-cream and befriended a cat. I spent a little time speaking with some cast members and we retired to the room for Eliana’s continuation of her dance party and hopefully a movie till they sleep.