That pirate made me cry!

There is always this weird parent/child moment when the child figures out that you, as the parent, might just know what you are talking about.

I will admit, that since I have boys, we don’t have a lot of those moments.  I am sure that they have them with their dad as he coaches all of their sports teams and can bond with them over dude stuff.  Stuff like peeing standing up and how to whittle with a swiss army knife.  Things that would just make me messy…and most likely end up in the ER with the tip if my finger missing.

A month or so back, Kellen wanted to try out for the elementary school acting program. OH HOT DAMN…A NON SPORTING ACTIVITY!  I was all over that one!  This was something that I could do!

Truth?  I have only ever acted once, in high school and it was maybe three lines and I have no memory of if I was any good or not.  But, all stage fright aside, I have a bit of a flare for drama and at the very least could teach Kellen to not look at his feet while on stage, annunciate his words so that the audience could hear him…and I might be able to help out with the costumes (Yes, I swear to not cover him in glitter or rhinestone his pirate eye patch).

So after Kellen got into the program, he told me it was going to be a musical.  A PIRATE MUSICAL!  Um, yeah…I had to take a moment to calm my excitement!

Here are some things you should know about me…

            I wanted to be an elementary school music teacher. I love watching little kids sing.

            I grew up singing…non stop.  It was pretty much the only thing I liked to do all through

           school.

            I always had a secret dream of being on Broadway.  I HEART MUSICALS!

            We sing…ALL THE TIME at my house.  If I can figure out a way to make some random

            activity  musical, I will.  From singing the Dr. Seuss books to making up random songs while

           we  clean the house.   

At one time, I could sing…a little.  A few bouts of laryngitis and a great fear of ANYONE

 other then my kids hearing me sing has changed that.

If you have heard me karaoke, you know this…and again, I am sorry for making you suffer

through that.

 Anyway, I know a little about singing and while I have not done it in anyway that would be considered good in over a decade, I still remember the scales that breathing techniques.  And since Kellen was worried about being able to hold a rather long note in one of the songs, I started working with him on how to breath.  At the time, he just tolerated me.      

Last night he came home and could not wait to tell me what they had done that afternoon in his drama class.

“MOM!  We worked on breathing….just like you showed me and I already knew how to do it

and I could sing the notes.  It was just like what we worked on at home!  How did you know

what to do?”

“I told you that I had been in choir when I was younger.  You have to learn what notes to sing

and how to hold them.”

“Well, I know you told me that, but I thought it was just more of your…mom stuff.  I did not

know that the teacher would teach us the same thing!”  

I doubt that he will start to listen to me daily or believe everything I tell him to do (still working on a good story to make him be nice to his brother) but that one little moment last night was a nice start.

He even agreed to sing me the first song from the musical and yes, when he was done I had to sneak away to the bathroom as to not let him see me cry…cuz it was just about the sweetest little song that I had ever heard…about a pirate.