Suessical -A Family Affair

Kennon and Savannah were cast in their grade school musical last fall. Then Caroline was hand selected to play the elephant bird. Realizing what they had done the directors quickly came up with a part for Camille, making a special exception for a first grader to be in the show. Since returning from our spring break vacation I have spent every afternoon at the school with all 5 kids till 5:30 just so Caroline could the fine art of practicing popping out of the egg. All the egg popping practice payed off and she was the cutest elephant bird ever.

The other girls made us pretty proud also.

My parents took a break from the busy B & B business to fly in for the performances this week. It meant so much to our girls that they came. They missed the last performance to head back to Washington. Grandma is surprised here after finding out that after a year of not seeing her granddaughter, she is almost as tall as she is.

Kennon said later that it made her really sad when she looked out during the bows the last evening and didn't see Grandpa up leading the standing ovation. I have no idea where she learned how to strut her stuff so well onstage. It's almost like it was just . . . NATURAL? Acting or not we all had to admit this birdy's got talent.

"Mazie La Bird"

Each performance Savannah did she gained confidence and by the last performance she stole the show. Which is pretty hard thing to do for a girl with a one feathered tail.

"Gertrude McFuzz"She won the Horton Award for best performer so it's not just me saying these things. She went to bed that night bawling her eyes out because she would NEVER sing her songs again. She has always had a hard time with goodbyes. I didn't take it too seriously because she once cried as much for a tooth as it was placed in the envelope for the tooth fairy. And it wasn't even hers. It was Kennon's first tooth but she just couldn't bear the fact that that it was taken away FOREVER!

So if anyone is looking for a guest performer Savannah is ready and willing to dress up and sing it all again for you. I think we are covered for the family reunion talent shows this year.
Camille's last minute addition to the play involved carrying a heavy tray piled with cotton candy and popcorn. Somehow we ended up with one shy daughter and I love her for it. Kennon was soloing during Camille's two minutes on stage, but all I could do was watch sweet Camille walking around trying desperately to do it all right and not get in anyone's way.

"Circus Girl"She was happy to be in the show but was as nervous and could be up on stage. It didn't help that she could barely balance the tray and had circus performers bumping into her the whole time and giving her dirty looks to stay out of their territory.She hated the bow tie I picked out for her and had her art teacher make her this one for the last night.

Caroline on the other hand was right in her element. She got her own mike headset for her three little words, "An Elephant Bird". She pops out of the egg, stretches, smiles, looks around, then waits till her mother just wants to scream, "Caroline say it!"

Once she has built enough suspense and has every eye in the room, she is sings it out loud and proud. Here's the story real quick how she got this pretty costume, instead of a boring one I had planned for her.

"The Elephant Bird"

The week before I was late for the dress rehearsal already, when I noticed that Caroline's white leotard had chocolate on it. I hand washed it and threw it in the dryer. When I thought it had been long enough I sent Camille down to retrieve it. Still wet. So I started blow drying it not wanting to run down to the basement again. After a couple minutes I decided that this was something Camille could do while I got Marcus's diaper changed. Two minutes later the blow dryer shut off and Camille came in . . . and announced she had something that she didn't want to tell me. The good news is I got the chocolate out. The bad news is Camille added about ten large holes with the blow dryer. So Caroline and Camille decided to put on the soggy, holey costume backwards to hide the holes that were across the front of it. Now she had a saggy, soggy crotch and a skimpy hindend that showcased her little mermaid panties peeking through behind tights with a run in them. And I actually put her on stage in that! I didn't know what else to do. Turned out to be a great way to get a new pretty costume.

Marcus hated the show and I hated involving him in it. The kid can't stop hollering out for one minute. I watched one of the performances through the crack of the door in the hall!!

The last evening one of the teachers helping out backstage saw me peeping through again and swooped off with him. I didn't see him again till he came out with the teachers for the bows. I almost broke down and snapped a picture then. All 5 were up on stage.



No pictures from the show since it wasn't allowed (even though as I stood in back with a crazy 1 year old I saw cheaters snapping all over the place.)

I know Savannah doesn't agree but this little guy and his parents are glad that all good things come to an end.