“Mum I’m a dancing potato!” I turned around to see her chubby little face, eyes wide and animated, feet running far too fast for her tiny body, cannon-balling towards me.
“I’m a potato,” she stated far too loudly as she rushed into my arms in the school yard. She was all out of breath and sweaty and so very, very excited.
“MUM!, I’m a potato! In our musical! I’m going to dance and be a potato. They chose ME!”
Ohhhh, a potato. Really? Her eyes were so big and blue. I could tell she was ecstatic. I wondered what a dancing potato even did. I mean apart from grow in the dirt, possibly get washed and cut into bits, potatoes did jack shit. They are inanimate objects, FFS. But hey, I wasn’t there to crush her spirit, I was her mother damn it and as her mother, she would be made to feel like the best dancing spud ever. Even if that meant I would have to encourage her to act like a root vegetable with spirit fingers. I was all about embracing the Potato.
I’ll admit though, when this happened, some years ago, I was still getting over the great Violin plucking concert of 1997.
Being the encouraging and nurturing parents that we were, we thought it was our duty to have our first child learn a musical instrument. It was my one regret, only making it to Hot Cross Buns stage on the Recorder. Meantime, my husband had learnt the Tuba as a young lad. This had enabled him to pull ALL the chicks. Wait, no it didn’t. I digress.
So we set about getting our eight-year-old at the time to learn the violin. I probably need say no more to any parent who has EVER sat through a violin plucking recital. Let’s just say we were plucked by the end of it. Plus, I fully believe in my heart, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, plucked on a 20-year-old, rarely tuned violin, may very well trigger some kind of incident where I go postal in the future. Forewarned, forearmed etc.
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I was a tree in Alice in Wonderland and my face was painted yellow with green leaves :/
My father still maintains that the worst thing he had to endure as a parent was a 3hour all schools choral festival. Now that my older 2 are at school I have watced a number of choir performances in which Miss 5 doesn't know the words and if she does sings very loudly out of tune. Miss 7 gets right into it smile, expression, too bad she cant sing. The worst part is they practice at home.
I pay $$$$$$ for my 3 princesses to do dancing and they all love it, they aren't really good at it, but do love it. The concerts provide entertainment as Miss 5 spends her time trying to find me( and anyone else she knows) in the audience and then forgets the dance. This year I watched Miss 3 push the girl next to her out of the way as she was stealing her limelight.