Kings

B:  Has been working very hard on our garden.  I asked him weeks ago why my kitchen floor was not loaded with seedlings in trays lain out in the sun that shines through our glass doors and he explained that this year, he would be "ammending the soil." 

Planting vetch, for instance, in last year's corn patch.  I don't think I believed that "vetch" is a plant and not a Yiddish word.  He will also spend his summer building hot-boxes (low-lying green houses) using windows he bought at an auction.  He has been digging holes for the currant and raspberry bushes and has abandoned hope for growing blueberries.

All of which is to say that this year--with its structural improvements, climate-considered plant choices and long-term soil improvements--marks his own mental adjustment to being a resident of Colorado Springs, and not a guy who is going to move to a farm in Missouri any time soon.

One might ask why he should bother at all.  This is a high dessert.  Is food supposed to grow here? 

I think he does it for the fun of it.  (Though it never seems like fun when the hail comes in late June and wrecks shotgun-like havoc upon all his efforts.)  For something to do with the kids each evening as they go out and tend the garden together. 

I realize this time around that there might be one more reason:  He has dominion out in that yard.  He gets to plan what goes where.  He gets to yank out weeds that do not belong.  Until the hail comes, anyway, he gets to be King over a patch of Earth.


G: Gemma's performance in The King and I was this past Friday night.  Not the whole musical.  It was a 17 minute production where each of the 12 kids in her class had 3 lines to say and they all sang 3 songs from the show. 

Of course, once you take everything out of the original production that you don't want to explain to 7 year-olds (you know--the harem stuff, sexual slavery, xenophobia) you only have about 17 minutes left anyway. 

For 3 months, we've been driving around with the soundtrack of her 3 songs.  "Getting To Know You," which, before this, I thought was from an Oldsmobile commercial; "I Whistle a Happy Tune," which provides a helpful strategy for frightful situations:

Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune so no one will suspect I'm afraid. . .

The result of this deception is very strange to tell:
For when I fool the people I fear, I fool myself as well.

Got that, friends?  So, say, if you are ever cornered by a tiger who has just escaped the zoo and you feel afraid, put on a fresh face, whistle a happy tune, and you'll fool not only that tiger, but yourself as well.


I particularly liked her final song, 'Shall We Dance?'  Rogers and Hammerstein (or whichever one was the lyricist) could be so coy. . .or maybe it was a 1960's thing.

Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music, shall we fly?

Shall we dance?
Shall we then say "Goodnight," but mean, "Goodbye"?

Or, perchance,
When the last bit of star has left the sky
Will we still be together with our arms around each other and will you be my new romance?
With the clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen
Shall we dance?  Shall we dance?  Shall we dance?

Love it!  "This kind of thing can happen."  Indeed! 

I'm not even googling for these lyrics, you know.  They're locked in my head.  For. Ev. Er.

They're locked in Joshua's, too.  His favorite is also this last one and he loves to shout out Yule Brennar's line--the numbers he calls out as Anna is teaching him to dance and he is trying to keep time. . .

That is, Gemma sings, "Shall we dance?"

And Josh says, "1, 2, 3 and!" 

"On a bright cloud of music, shall we fly?"

"1, 2, 3 and!"


OK, OK, back to "G,"  -- the show was Friday evening.  She was so cute.  So cute.  A parent's job is to identify what special talent and fire and passion God has put into a child, and for Gemma, the theater is not it.

But she delivered her lines with great confidence and effect, and she danced away with the other children of the king and, this part  surprised me: she smiled the entire time she was on stage.  I'm telling you: crazy cute.


J: Gemma's was the second of 6 performances in a row, by classes that are all run by the same school.  We had planned to make a quick exit after Gemma's, mostly in consideration of him.  It was almost 8 PM, after all, and how long and late should he be expected to keep quiet and still?

(And this wasn't being rude to others.  It meant that we would be leaving our front row seats that I had arrived 60 minutes early to secure, and other parents could then sit closer and take great pictures.  Plus, there were several minutes between shows in which we could leave without interrupting anything.)

But he didn't want to leave.  He wanted to watch the next one!  So we did.  He and Daddy stayed in the front row and the Burches and I left our good seats and stood in the back.

Then Daddy decided that he had totally put in his time--his own kid's show? yes, but how many shows full of strange children should he be expected to endure?

Josh wanted to stay.

Daddy tried to bribe him with a reminder that we were headed to Applebee's with Miss Betsy and Amy for our after-show celebration. 

He wanted to stay.

So we did.  Through the fifth show, at which point I was prepared to lie to him and tell them there were no more.  There's no way I wanted to get stuck in the parking lot when the whole audience let out.

But after the fifth performance, he stood up and announced in the darkened auditorium (as one cast left and the set was being changed for the last time), "Mommy!  It's Time to Go!" 

I love that he loved all these performances. 

He likes to perform himself.  For Gemma, anyway.  Tonight, as we drove home from AWANA, he had put a cardboard crown onto a balloon and making the balloon-king announce all the laws of the land.  Things like, "You have to clean up your toys and you have to stay inside unless your Mommy or Daddy says you can go outside. . ."  Gemma was cracking up and he loved it.

We pulled into the garage.  He opened his door and shouted, "Announcing: The King of Colorado!"