I feel like renting Hook.

Saturday night we attended a performance of the musical “Peter Pan” at our school (it took me awhile to figure out how to refer to the school. Eric teaches there, the kids both attend… I guess that makes it my school as well?? Anyhow it belongs to ¾ of the family so I might as well accept it as mine). The thing I have always enjoyed about small Christian schools is that everyone who wants to be involved gets to be involved (and sometimes even those who do not want to be involved, get to be involved.) The atmosphere is fun, not serious. You try to do your best and that is all that is asked. Being an adult watching the performance I could point out how occasionally Peter Pan sang off tune, how I could hear Capt Hook but had could never understand what he was saying and how if you did not already know the story coming in, you might get lost (there were some interesting choices in scene selection) along with the Lost Boys. I could also tell you that I was amazed at how well Peter Pan was acted, how charming all the Lost Boys were, how nicely Wendy sang, how cool the sets were and how amazingly perfect the sets were painted. Especially the picture of the horse in the children’s room…
My favorite scene was one my children laughed at because of the slap stick but which Eric and I laughed at because of the wit. It was a scene in which Capt Hook and one of his cronies were being chased by the tick tocking crocodile. The scene was done in slow motion, with a fall by the pirate, and set to the theme song of Chariots of Fire. Very nicely done.
But really none of that, good or bad, mattered on Saturday night. What matter was Olivia being perfectly quiet and watching with eyes as big as silver dollars to every moment of the musical and seeing her hug herself at the end of each act and dance around in the aisle or Jack sitting in Eric’s lap, completely still except for the constant change of expression on his face. We all booed fiercely when ever we spied Capt Hook and cheered gleefully at the sight of Peter Pan. We yelled “I believe in fairies” to bring Tink back to life and Jack crowed right along with Peter Pan as he took out the pirates.
And at the end, Jack jumped up and clapped as he has never clapped before and the rest of us joined him as we cheered for the performers and all the people who helped create the production.