I dread it every year. "It" = the Talent Show at the boys' elementary school. It's not just that I have to sit through watching my children perform a routine that I have already been forced to watch 7.2 million times, it's having to watch (and listen to) other people's children. For two and a half hours. (And as a sidenote here, I did stay and I made my kids stay throughout the entire thing even though they were early on in the night. Other people left after their kids performed. Lame.)
I'm not a theater person. You know this.
Except when I wanted to go see Jersey Boys in Chicago. I was a theater person that day.
It's not just having to go over to school on a Friday night when I'd rather be home with my bowl of popcorn. There was all of the practice--or lack thereof--prior to the Talent Show. You see, I've discovered my children want to be on stage, but they don't want to do any of the rehearsing prior to the event. Apparently they feel they are naturally talented and don't need to practice.
So practice sessions become nagging sessions with the moms hovering around and trying to get them to run through the routine at least once so they actually knew the moves and words to the song before show time. Is it too much too ask? Apparently.
In fact, this year's routine, was to feature Declan, Finn, Declan's friend Jack, and Jack's little brother, Reid (he's in kindergarten!) as a group called Ice Cubed and hip hopping to "Ice Ice Baby." (Don't worry, we cut it off before the last verse when Vanilla Ice throws out a few swear words. We learned our lesson after accidentally choosing a song with explicit lyrics last year and having the song banned by the school--which they later played at a school dance. Hmmm.)
Anyway, during the first rehearsal, it dawned on Finn that he was actually going to have to practice many times before the performance. Like over and over and over again. He dropped out of the group. Next year he says he's doing a solo routine.
But with all of my grumbling about the difficulty of making the kids practice, having to leave the nest on a Friday night, and sitting and watching out of sync dancers and listening to out of tune singers for what seemed like an eternity, I'll do it again next year because all of the kids--mine and everyone else's--did a really great job. They had the nerve to get up there and do their act, whether they were in tune or out, in front of a crowd of people, which is far more than I could say about myself at that age (or even now).
However, you might just have to remind me not to grumble when Talent Show time comes around next year.
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3 comments:
Video? I must have video to go with this post!!
(ice, ice baby)
Going to see daughter Molly's 8th grade talent show tomorrow. She's excited to dance to a Miley Cyrus song with some of her BFFs. I could not even begin to tell you how many times I've heard the song, but as I ponder my youngest moving on to high school next year (sniff, sniff), I would seriously do it all over in a heartbeat. :)
Mary Z
Parents do the same thing here, and quite frankly, it really chaps my hide. Their kid received *their* award, then they're out the door. Their kid performed in the morning assembly, but they don't stay to watch the rest of it. (I guess I can give working parents a pass on that one ... maybe ....) The other one that gets me are when we have sports events at the middle school, and 7th grade parents take their kids and leave when their game is over, and elect NOT to stay and cheer for the 8th graders .... or 8th grade parents who don't show up until 5 minutes before their kids game starts. Whatever happened to rooting for your classmates, even if they are a year younger or older?? Seriously, are these people so important that taking an hour out of their day is going to matter???
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