Before we headed to practice yesterday, I made her lemon water with essential oils to help her throat. As she was walking into practice she dropped the water bottle and it broke. She immediately began to cry and was quickly headed for a complete meltdown. She informed me she could NOT sing without her special water. I quickly rubbed some melt down oil on her, and the owner of the music shop gave her a bottle water. We avoided a crisis.
She entered class on a good note, the first run through of the song was good. Her coach decided to give her some dance move pointers. Audrey makes up all of her own moves. She and I had a tense-full conversation days before because I made a few suggestions. She does not appreciate our dance opinion, we are old and uncool. I made a suggestion and she said,I" like my move it stays". When she finally took my tip on a move she let me know each time she performed it, it was "for me". So, when her vocal coach, a man, tried to give her tips she was very ticked off. She tried to argue, she tried to say she was doing it the way I wanted, she tried to ignore him. I had to enter the argument to let her know Mr Keith was the professional, not us. His credentials go way higher than the "mom" card.
Fortunately, her vocal coach is awesome. I would have lost my composure with her attitude. She is tough to deal with, her autism makes her perception different from most kids. She thinks she can twirl and leap and sing all at the same time. We have told her it is not a collaboration. He is the coach, she is the student.
She shut down completely. she was barely singing and not moving. I just gripped my chair and stayed out of it. He handles her so well, but it is rough not to run ind and get mad at her. He struggled through with her, trying to reengage her. It was mostly to no avail. She could not let it go that 2 people were critical of her mad dance skills.
In the end, they hugged goodbye and we still have next week. I am sure Audrey will pull it all together and do wonderful at Idol. I may be just as bald as Mr. Keith by the time she does it though.