When we were children, we had Mum's cassette recorder and we would compose and put together who radio programs of the variety show type. We would script little plays, ads and news bulletins (a la The Two Ronnies) and then present them to our parents (we being my sister, my brother and myself - and any visiting child at the time).
I sometimes feel sorry for my only child not having any siblings, but then, she is quite happy in enlisting the help of those around her big or small - so in such endeavours I lose my sympathy and again go for the awe (okay, and small moments of frustration as Mummy really needs to put the dinner on).
As a very young child she was a crack-up in the car, mimicing and pulling faces and noises and playing with words. I told her she would be a comedienne one day - she nearly cried as she replied "No Mummy, I don't want to be a 'medienne, I want to be a nurse".
But I think she has the goods to be a director or producer. I have already made her promise that I will be her date to the Oscars!
When she was 4 and at childcare, she and a friend wrote a script for a fairytale they had been read. She then cast her friends in roles (and did not take the biggest one for herself - very proud of that), organised for several boys to be "the castle wall", created and organised other kids to make props, wrote a program and did tickets and seating arrangements for the play.
On being advised this by the room's Group Leader, I asked if she thought my child was "bossy". She thought for a moment and very tactfully replied "she is more of a benign dictator". lol - that's my girl.
Last weekend at her Nana's and Grandpa's, everyone was very busy packing boxes so she was playing and helping quite happily when a brainwave occurred.
She got bits of paper and made stick puppets and a puppet theatre. Then she roped me and V into being the other characters, and wrote very squiggly directions on what our stage movements were to be. Then she got Nana to be narrator and help write the narration (my daughter's penmanship, unfortunately, can be genetically traced to her mother). Finally, when her cousins and aunt and uncle arrived for afternoon tea, got her (littler) cousins to help set up the chairs.
And her performance worked - fair enough, not a very scintillating tale (from a well-read critic's perspective) but I am SO PROUD OF HER!!! Our stage directions and timing was perfect with the narration, and it worked.
She then tried to hold a Q&A session, but there are only so many questions that non-interactive adults will pose - then she gave away the puppets to her cousins.
I so wish I had thought to take pictures and keep those moments - but then, there WILL BE another production, I am sure.
Technorati tags: [family] ; [parenting] ; [performance]
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