Bippity Boppity Boo

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl magically becomes a princess. Boy marries girl. They live happily ever after.

The stuff of childhood dreams and simplistic romance defined.

Shawn took the family to Cinderella the Musical at our local ampitheater Wednesday night. But it wasn't what was on stage that held my attention, it was the audience. I'd never seen so many crowns and light blue rayon ball gowns on small children in my life. It looked like everyone had dressed up their little girls but us.


Waiting for the bathroom was like being in some sort of royal twilight zone, surrounded by fawning princesses on every side.

"Oh, your dress is so pretty."

"Thanks. I like your crown."

"Your shoes are so sparkly."

"Look! Her wand lights up!"

Now, GooseyGirl is into all this romance just as much as the next girl but she'd NEVER admit it. She gets queasy when characters fall in love and she swears that it is the kissing she can't stand. We had fun teasing her on the way to the play about the amount of kissing we suspected there might be on stage. She was moaning and groaning over that prospect while saying over and over, "I HATE kissing!"

The musical began and the ugly stepsisters took the stage. They were played perfectly by two men in drag. One was rail thin with a huge curly blonde wig. The other was rotund with black curly ribbon bedecked pony tails. They were wonderful comic foils but I was pretty sure my kidlets hadn't realized they were not women.

Soon the Fairy Godmother did the whole abracadabra thing and Cinderella was at the ball dressed to kill with her eye on her man. The romantic tension was building and I noticed GooseyGirl had started squirming uncomfortably in her chair. She had her legs balled up under her dress and her breathing was fast.

Then it happened.

The kiss.



Suddenly a loud group moan of, "Eewwwwwwww", came up from the all girls around us with GooseyGirl's voice in the lead. It seems she wasn't the only one who could do without all the lip action.

That's when BirdMan started singing his rhyme, "Cinderelly, Cinderelly, you're so smelly". Which was a huge hit with all the wanna be prince charmings around us.

Towards the end of the play the Ugly Stepsisters were trying on the glass slipper and grunting to get their little tootsies into the shoe. GooseyGirl leaned over to me and said, "Momma, they're so funny! They sound like men."

I whispered in her ear, "Honey, they ARE men."

She gasped out loud and clamped her hands over her mouth, then dissolved into giggles. "Oh, Momma, they must be so embarrassed!", she exclaimed.

Enriching their lives through art? Check!


buzz words: homeschool, homeschooling, home education, home educator, triplets, cinderella