A star is born

Two stars, actually. Or maybe, if we are stretching it, four. Last night was the holiday program at the kids' school. It was based on the book "Love You Forever" by Robert N. Munsch. It's the story of a mother who has a baby boy and rocks him to sleep singing, "I'll love you forever/I'll like you for always/As long as I'm living/My baby you'll be." As the boy grows into a toddler, teenager, and then grown man, she keeps singing the song. Then, one day, she becomes to old and sick to hold him and the roles are reversed, and he sings the song to her. Frankly, I've never really liked the book, because it's a little sad! But for the most part, the school made it very cute.

Will and Helen participated in the segment where the little boy was a toddler. Their class danced to the song "Splish splash I was taking a bath." Actually, it was more like one little girl dancing, most of the rest standing there, and a few of the boys discovering a little blow-up toy they had on stage and playing with it.

The girl in the foreground is the dancer. Helen is back there trying to figure out what this towel is attached to her wrist. She did finally give a little twist at the end. We were really surprised she didn't cry.

Will wasn't too phased at all with the crowd or the spotlight, but he wasn't into dancing either. Here he is figuring out that he's missing out on the blow-up toy - he's pointing to it. He did pitch a big fit when they made him leave the stage, so maybe he's got some future stardom in him after all.

Joseph played the little boy when he grew up and got married (which is apparently not in the book, but they had to add a few parts so that all the kids in the boys' class could have individual roles). He wore an adorable little tux and said his lines, loudly if not with feeling, "Will you marry me?" and "I can't wait for you to meet my mother." His bride Ava accepted and he put the ring on her finger -- which she promptly oohed and aahed over and showed to the crowd (which apparently was not in the script).

Joseph and Ava dancing.

Charlie then had the biggest role of the night. He played the son all grown up, when he goes back to comfort his mother. He took his role very seriously. He came up on stage and told his mother (Ellie), "Don't worry mother, I am here now." And then he sat down beside her. Then he went back home to his new baby and sang the theme song . . . solo! We were so impressed. Then in the last scene, in order to represent the new father with his baby, the entire nursery class was brought in by the teachers, one by one, and Charlie gave each one a (quite perfunctory) little pat. Adorable.

Charlie comforting his old mother, Ellie.


Charlie singing his solo.

And possibly prophetic? We've always thought our best bet was to have Charlie take care of us in our old age, and hopefully Joseph would make a lot of money and support us all.