It's been a busy month. But the best kind of busy. Being apart of this musical has done exactly what I'd hoped it would. It made winter go by fast. I have many updates, so I will do my best. Joe absolutely nailed it for my birthday. It was on a Saturday and I was in Edmonton for rehearsals, but when I came home the house was clean and the laundry was done (which was my only semi-realistic birthday wish). And then he had the kids present me with the presents that they bought at the Dollar Store. This is a step up from Value Village that he's been pulling over the past couple years. At least these gifts weren't smelly. But the kids definitely chose gifts for "me." Zoe got me silly glasses that she decided I could wear for five seconds before she took them off my face for her to wear. Ellie didn't let me have five seconds. I got one to try on her plastic, yet very glittery, crown. Noah got me a stuffed puppy dog that he named Steve. And Jackson got me a bouncy ball. Yes. My kids know me so well! Ha! But the highlight was, they all chose an instrument and each sang me a verse of a song that they wrote just for me. It was so sweet! Ellie played the "claps" while Joe played the guitar, Noah played the keyboard and Jackson played the gem-bay. Zoe was supposed to dance but she chose my lap since she hadn't seen me in all of 24 hours. Ha! Oh it was so cute! Ellie made up her verse on the spot and Joe's was memorized (impressive), but the boys wrote their verses down.
Jackson: "Mother! Mother! I wish I could be with Mother! No wonder we're with each other. Mother! Mother! I want to be with no otherrrrrrrrrrr!"
Noah: "I get my beautiful eyes from Mom. I really think she's the bomb. Every time you read to me, it really makes me happy. I'm glad you're my Mom. That's why I wrote this song."
Yes, adorable. Thankfully I recorded this gem on video, so I'll have it forever. Joe outdid himself by fulfilling one of my not-very-reasonable-but-I-really-hope-it-happens birthday wishes. He made a card for me in the form of a newspaper with the headline saying, "She's the Queen of New York." And in his card was the promise to take me to Newsies which will be touring in Ontario when I'm there in August (I am being flown there to do a concert/speaking event for a Youth Leadership Conference), and Joe is going to fly out there with me using our Visa Points and make a mini-vacation of it!!! I am so excited! We have already been talking about some of our favourite restaurants that we want to revisit (Pomello's) and friends we want to see and things we want to do (the beach)! It will only be for a long weekend, but heck, I will take it and cherish it forever! I have been talking about going to Newsies since last year when we were trying to plan a trip to New York after Joe finished school and it turned into a trip to the Dominican. My heart is full. AND SO EXCITED!!
Just a quick update on the kids. Jackson and Noah had another parent-teacher night and they are both doing so well. Apparently, Jackson is reading at a beginner grade four level and his teacher says he is a dream student. Very responsible and a good leader. As a mom, this is so special to hear. I am super proud of him. He is such a good boy. Noah's teacher says he is also doing very well and he is a very good student. Noah's reading is also very good and he's zipping through the reading log books like a whiz. His teacher also says he is very creative and thorough with detail when it comes to writing stories and drawing pictures for them. I should know because one of the stories that was sent home was about someone tooting. Well done Noah.
Ellie seems to really be coming into her own. I think she gives off that she is fragile, but really, she's pretty darn tough. What I've noticed from her this winter is that she LOVES to go sledding and nothing stops that girl. There is a small hill at the boys's school, so often we will bring the sleds and sled for a good 30 mins or so. She also went sledding for Charlie's birthday and Grandpa even noticed what a tough pig she was. A true compliment.
As I am writing this at 9pm, Zoe is laughing hysterically in her room, in the dark, with some minions. She does this a lot. Almost every night. Sometimes she will be quiet for hours and then right before I am about to go to bed, I will hear belly laughter randomly coming from her room. One time I tried to catch her in the act to see what she was laughing at, but she was just under the covers like a regular little girl. I asked her and she said, "I say Zoe in a box! Hahahahahaha!" She thinks she is so funny. I am sure she is cracking some great jokes right now.
A small update on my musical: This has been the most exciting, fun, fulfilling, dramatic and stressful thing I have done in a long time. I have had to deal with some level of drama, which needs to happen, because this IS drama after all, but nothing too outlandish. Jayna Butler has been a peach. A dream peach. She is so great to work with, and even under stressful conditions she is able to keep her cool (at least to my knowledge) and has been so on top of everything. It's been really fun. One of the things that has been not-so-fun was one of our characters, "Vivian" dropped out a couple weeks ago. Our show is a month away and we needed to find someone STAT! I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off when my friend Barb suggested that either Jayna or I do it since we already know the play. Jayna agreed that I should do it. My initial reaction was, "no!" That's too stressful! I can't do one more thing! And then I remembered that just the night before this happened I was talking to my Mother in law about how much I wanted to be on stage WITH the cast learning all the dance moves and challenging myself to memorize lines like I know what I'm doing. So, after Vivian dropped out I figured maybe, just maybe, this was a blessing in disguise to do just that! When is the next time I am going to have an opportunity to do that again? And why the heck not? I'm not getting any younger. And as far as musical directing goes, the biggest part of my job is pretty much done. It's all review now and nit-picky stuff. And I love that stuff. That stuff doesn't stress me out. Memorizing Vivian's lines, on the other hand (even though I wrote them) is another story! Another "opportunity" also landed in my lap. At first I thought, "there's no way I could pull this off" but honestly, I didn't have much choice. Our choreography team can only meet Saturday mornings. They have been working tirelessly with the cast on those days, but I was doing the math and we just had way too many songs to get through and not enough Saturdays! They asked Jayna and I to take over a few of the songs. I was like, "okay, at least I'll have Jayna to guide me through this." And then Jayna told me she couldn't help me with two of the numbers, "Cursed By a Woman" and the Reprise (all male cast), because she was swamped with report cards and such, so I was on my own! Eep! I was secretly elated. I was in charge of making these musical numbers be whatever I wanted them to be, and by golly I was going to make it good. So, I watched a lot of Newsies clips and Daniel Radcliffe's performance at the Tony's called, "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." And then I remembered that the guys I was working with were not broadway dancers and I had to really tone it down. I figured, if I could do the steps, they could do them, and hopefully better. It's tricky trying to put together a group choreo number when you are one person and you just hope that your idea looks cool as a group. Well. It helps when you have really talented guys to work with that really ham it up, which is exactly what this group of guys are! They are so fun and make my choreo look effortless and funny. The Reprise is a little different, because we are adding Eleanor to the mix, so there's an element of romance between Eddie and Eleanor, but we still have the guys in a segment. I thought it would be much easier to choreograph just the couple, because it's only two people, but it's actually harder. I've been watching a lot of Singing in the Rain's, "You Are My Lucky Star" to get myself inspired. I think I am very close. We worked on it last Saturday and the ideas are coming together, so I'm excited. We have a Madame Librarian moment where to guys each take a turn stealing the girl during a section of the song. It is so fun. We also had a videographer come in and take video of the process of rehearsals and then interview the leads in the cast. One of the questions was, "which is your fav song in the production?" and the greatest compliment is that most people said "Cursed By a Woman" because of the fun choreo the guys do in the song. I am excited for an audience to finally see it! This whole experience has been incredible thus far. I keep having moments during rehearsal while the cast is singing and I start to cry because I am so overwhelmed that this is all finally coming together.
The Phone Call
1 year ago
