Proud Parents

Our poor daughter. She went to her son's Christmas progrram and was startled and dismayed when her perfectly behaved son began throwing up everywhere. She had to go on stage and remove him.

Has anyone had this happen?

I used to cringe at the programs becuse my kids wouldn't perform.

We were invited to a concert by friends to watch their five-year-old daughter perform. She froze in the middle of the stage and rolled up her dress from the hem to her chest. The audience loved it; they were mortified.

David's last year at Montessori, the kids were on stage at the end-of-year program, singing "..put your finger in the air.." only while all the other kiddies were pointing skyward, Dave's finger was resting on the top of his head at a very garish angle. He had this mischievous grin. I asked him later what was up. He said, with much feigned innocence, "That song didn't say, "Put you finger in the air. That song said put your finger in your hair."

In high school, Dave played lead guitar and composed the music and arrangements for a heavy metal band. He always liked performing.

Lynn, on the other hand, really hated taking ballet lessons. Her grandmother had to drag her to the classes (she was paying for the lessons she insisted Lynn had to take to become a proper lady), until the first actual performance. The minute the lights hit her face, she discovered she was an actress. She performed that little dance as though she were the prima ballerina. That night was a direct lead-in to her MFA in Theater Arts. (And I made sure David's early teachers learned that he eventually earned a PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics - and cut his hair short.)

Ann

Shelagh and Ann,

How funny'!

I have probably told this story before. I have a habit of doing that, but here goes. Most of my kids have been performers of some sort.

When my son, Steve, was in seventh grade, there was a huge concert at the end of the year of the school bands. Steve played drums and had recently sprained his arm in some sort of risky behavior he often seemed to get involved in. So he wore an ace bandage fastened with those little ace bandage clips. Then when it was time to play drums, he took off the ace bandage, put the clips on the band leader's chair and played his drum part. Afterwards the band director sat down on his assigned chair, which for some reason now had little ace bandage clips on it.

The next time the director stood up there before an audience of thousands, little ace bandage clips were hanging from the back of his pants and my son was trying his hardest not to break out laughing.