23 August 2012

Got Talent?

Jessie brought home a note yesterday asking for our permission for her to go in "Our School's Got Talent" where primary school kids perform a song or dance or something similar.

Jessie had some half-baked ideas of getting me to teach her piano and then teaching her a song to perform in the week we've got before auditions.  I told the poor little darling that I really am no piano teacher but fell short of reminding her that she doesn't like taking instruction from me at all.  I mean, she HAS to, being my child, but she doesn't like it and aggressively resists even my attempts to get her to write her number 3s the right way around.

She wondered if she could learn a song to sing.  She wondered if she could learn a dance to perform.  She wondered if she could learn some gymnastics ... none of these are easy to pull together from a baseline of No Prior Knowledge within one short week.

Then I said something that made her eyes light up and think that she absolutely, definitely was going to compete in Our School's Got Talent, and quite possibly wipe the floor with the other contestants.  "How about you say a poem?  A funny one that Mummy wrote?  Maybe even you and Buzz could do an act together, saying different stanzas?"  In order to illustrate what I meant to them, I suggested a couplet off the top of my head:

We have  brand-new baby, his name is Tim-o-THY
He is a little brother for Nathaniel, Joe and me.

They received this as if I were Keates or Byron, or at least Roald Dahl, and now I'm done for.

I have to write something brilliant in an impossibly short time-frame, and somehow gently tell Buzz that his choreographed moves to the as-yet unwritten lines will probably not suit the piece.

It's turning out to be more of a "Mummy's Got Talent" and in between feeding and nappy changes, I'm feeling the pressure.


5 comments:

gartcott aka Penny Hannah said...

Your couplet put the following into my head. Only four lines , then inspiration deserted me!
Nathaniel, Joe and Jessie - that's me
Have a new little brother called Timothy.
He's little and sweet has two tiny pink feet.
Ten little fingers, a cute button nose.....

Givinya De Elba said...

It's a great start! There's promise there!

Allegro ma non troppo said...

Next lines:

This poem you hear was written by my mummy, not by me
I would rather stay in bed and draw a map of wee.

Givinya De Elba said...

Oh my.

Tracy P. said...

This made me realize I have one more thing to be thankful for with two kids in middle school. No more "projects" that are really parent competitions. At least that I am presently aware of. I hope. But otherwise I miss those years!