A couple weeks back, Ethan got in his head that he was going to be in the school's talent show. I sat through 2 hours of horrific Hannah Montana renditions last year to wait for Ethan's entire class to sing "God Bless America", so I wanted to discourage this as strongly as possible.
"What would your talent be?" we asked.
"Singing," Ethan decided.
We told him that no, he couldn't even be bothered to help his class with God Bless America last year, there's no way he would sing a whole song by himself this year.
OK, he would think of something else and get back to us.
A few hours later....
"I know what my talent is going to be!"
"What," we asked disapprovingly.
"Mime!"
I'm sorry, what?
"Mime, you know" and then he proceeds to do a rough interpretation of the I'm-trapped-in-a-box routine.
Now, far be it from me to tell my son he is well on his way to being beaten repeatedly in future grades. I am not going to crush his dreams and hopes by way of making sure he's popular. I want him to be happy, but in his own way, not in a way I tell him to be. Mime, however....
"Show me your routine," I demand. I watch intently as my wife stifles and then tries to recover from a hysterical laughing fit out of earshot.
He then proceeds to mime a little something that appeared to be a guy who sees his girlfriend from far off and was completely in love. Or, it could have been a guy extremely happy to be having a heart attack. He mimes this for about 10 seconds and that's it.
"Ethan, that's not bad. But you have to come up with a whole routine that lasts a couple of minutes. Can you do that?"
He vows to work on it.
The deadline for auditioning for the talent show comes and goes with not another word about it.
I have rarely been so relieved.
