My daughter was in a Christmas play at church today. The kids in the fellowship presented "The Scottish Shepherd's Story." Essentially it takes a different spin on the Christmas story, focusing on shepherds instead of the Wise Men and such. In years past, my kid had various walk-on roles in the annual production, playing angels and other random extras that didn't require any lines. Now that she is older and can read (and so fluently, too!), she landed a talking part. She played Judean Shepherd #2. Apparently there was an actor shortage, as she was also cast in the role of Judean Shepherd #3. She gets really pissy if you forget that she is both.
"Listen, Judean Shepherd #2, it's almost noon and you still haven't made your bed."
"Also #3, Mom! Judean Shepherd #3!"
"Well, the fact remains that you have not made your bed."
She brought home her script on Wednesday and we ran through her lines. I must say she read them with great gusto and much animation. She was disappointed in my portrayal of the other shepherds when I read their lines, though.
Lately it seems like my daughter's schedule is busier than mine. Last week I had to pick her up from a student council meeting on Monday, drive her to church for play practice on Wednesday, and drive her back for another practice on Saturday. I kept thinking, "She's still just six, right?"
Speaking of being six . . . we picked up a friend of hers yesterday and took the girls to a local Christmas celebration. It was held at a historical park where they have reproductions of a blacksmith shop, one-room schoolhouse, etc. The volunteers wear costumes from days of yore (maybe from my own childhood, which my daughter refers to as "the olden days.") For this event, they had popcorn stringing, a shadow play, horse-drawn wagon rides, and so forth. Towards the end of the day, my daughter and her friend were talking to each other while they munched popcorn. Her friend asked, "Truth or dare?"
My daughter, without hesitating for half a second or even taking a breath said, "Dare!" The fact that she automatically chose dare without even thinking about it makes me fear her teenage years terribly. The good news is that the "dare" was "I dare you to kiss your mom." And of course my daughter gave me a kiss because she does not yet think that kissing one's mom is uncool. Also, when truth was chosen on the next round, I was relieved to find that the questions consisted of stuff like, "Did you see the new Muppet movie?" Whew!
