Drama at Play Practice

A few months ago, I heard about an opportunity for my kids.  A local children performing arts studio was putting on a homeschoolers production.  The practices would be in the afternoon.

My kids love being in plays so we signed up. I thought it would be fun for them and a good social opportunity as well.

The ages were 9-14 so it was just Emma and Braeden, not Mark.

On the way to the class/rehearsal the first day, Emma could hardly contain herself in the front seat of the van.  She was excited.

I think Mark was equally excited that he was going to spend the next two hours doing errands with me...although he didn't express that sentiment.

I walked in with Emma and Braeden to pay the fee.  The receptionist said, "I'm not going to have you pay yet.  We'll see if we get enough kids to do the play."

I said, "How many do you have?"

She said, "Three."

And two of them were mine.

She said, "We need at least 4-5 minimum."

I went shopping with Mark (which isn't as much fun as it sounds) and worried about the play.  My children would be so disappointed if the play didn't happen.  And I thought of Emma's shining eyes as we had driven to the studio.  She asks for so little and how I love it when she has shiny eyes.

I decided that when we returned to pick them up, I'd offer Mark to them.  He's seven, not nine, but he's big.  Does that count?

Apparently it does.

No one besides the three had shown up and they were happy to get Mark (and collect his fee).   I said, "He's only seven..."

They said, "Well I'm SURE he's a good reader."

I said, "He's a first grader..."

But they wanted him and our money so Emma could continue with the shining eyes.

I asked my kids about it on the way home.  They'd loved it.  They'd played some improv games and were thrilled.  I asked about the other boy.  They thought he was a little strange.  (I said, "Yeah those homeschooled kids are weird."  My kids said, "Ha ha, very funny.")

Braeden said, "He thinks he's Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid."

As the weeks passed and they spent more time with "Greg", their opinions of him didn't seem to improve.  They told me most days he had to go sit in the hall for awhile to calm down before he could go back to practice.

One day when I picked them up, Emma was mad.  She said the "Greg" was ruining the play.  In addition to ripping up his script, he had ripped Mark's.  And she said he often hit and kicked all three of them.

What?!

"Greg" is 11 but no bigger than Mark.  And he was hitting and kicking my three big kids?

But (unlike my siblings and me..heaven help "Greg" if my kids had dispositions like Tabor...or Olivia), my kids aren't really ones to hit each other.  I remember Olivia and me pulling each other to the floor, pulling each other's hair.  I can't imagine my kids acting like that.  And not because of anything I've done.  When I used to babysit my little brothers, my mode of handling them was a smack here and there...until one day when Enoch stopped my hand mid-flight.  That kind of ended my smacking career.

Maybe our children got their peace loving ways from Adam.

But that doesn't mean a pint sized bully was going to hit and kick them.

I was slightly tempted to tell Emma to just flatten the kid but I mustered my good mother persona and realized there were valuable social skills to be learned.  The world is full of bullies.

I told them under no circumstances were they to hit or kick young "Greg" back and that they weren't even to be mean or yell at him. 

"Just look him straight in the eye if he hits you and say firmly, 'Don't do that.'"

I knew that "Greg" would back down.  I mean Braeden and Emma towered over the kid.  I said, "If he hits or kicks Mark, both of you look him in the eye.  He'll stop."

And he did.

When Ammon and Melanee were here, it was the big event:  the performance.

Some pictures of my kids in action:

The play was The True Story of the Big Bad Wolf.  The version where the wolf is innocently trying to borrow a cup of sugar for his dear old granny's birthday cake and the pigs won't share.  Braeden played the wolf.  Here he is sneezing and therefore accidentally knocking down a pig's house.

Mark was the first little pig:

Perhaps my favorite part of the play was when Mark returned as an angel pig after being eaten by the wolf.

Or maybe it was Emma, the second pig's, lecture to the wolf on why sugar is bad for you and he shouldn't be borrowing it in the first place:

I'm the mother and so of course I thought my kids were brilliant. 

It's part of the job description.