It Ain't Over til the Fat Lady...Whats???

Do you ever stop to ponder what is going on in their heads? I am talking about children and their sweet precious little minds. What must they be thinking when we adults are speaking rapidfire in our local colloquialisms and bouncing our idioms all over the place?

For example...
These 8 year-olds were recently overheard: My son Will and his best friend, Jace, while racing cars on the Play Station2…

Will: “I’m going to beat you!”
Jace: "No you're not."
Will: "Yes, I am."
Jace: “Well, it ain’t over til the fat lady sings.”
Will: “No. It’s ‘it ain’t over til the fat lady swings.' ”
Jace: “Uhh-Uhhh. It ain’t over til the fat lady sings.”
Will: “Swings!”
Jace: “Sings!”
Will: “Swings.”
Jace: “Sings.”

A little time passes.

Will: “The fat lady does too, swing.”

This from children who will probably never even know why a fat lady should sing, much less actually see an opera. Now, fat ladies swinging...this is the south...they see that every day.

Or how about the time Will at age 4 declares that he will be the "Ring Bear" at my brother's wedding.
Here is my recollection of that Happy Event from 2003

The Ring Bear

My thirty-three year old brother became engaged this winter. The entire family was teetering with excitement. We hadn’t had a wedding in the family for a very long time. My three offspring were thrilled to be asked to be in the wedding as various participants. My older son(14) a groomsman, my younger daughter(11) a Junior bridesmaid and the youngest son(4), the “ring bear” as he proudly announced to friends and family. You see, he had recently watched an episode of Little Bill and was of course well versed in the “ring bear’s” duties…namely to growl at the audience??? Thank-you, public television.

Just so we are clear…remember, a four year-old is an unpredictable force of nature. As the big day approached much had been said to the four year-old in preparation for the part he would play in the wedding. “Now, son, you will have an important job. You will get to wear a tuxedo. You will walk down the aisle with the flower girls. You will be carrying the pillow with the rings on it. You will stand, not sit during the ceremony. And you will behave like a fine young gentleman.” Etc, etc. And man, had we practiced. The hallway in our house was an aisle. The fireplace hearth was the altar. And his most prized possession, his Batman car, was the pillow. You get the picture.

Of course at the actual rehearsal, on the grounds of the upscale golf club, the little “bear” refused to walk down the sidewalk, refused to be nice to the flower girls, refused to stand up front, and had the audacity to throw the ring pillow that I, his mother had painstakingly hand sewn, on to the ground. I about lost it.

At that point my husband and I are racking our brains. What works better… bribes or threats. Time-outs? Or a new gameboy? A politically-incorrect, old-fashioned spanking? Or how about your very own camera, hon? I must confess I was doing a little of both, bribing and threatening. The morning of the wedding dawned gray and dismal. It not only rained… it thundered and lightening for the first half of the day. Not a good omen for an outdoor wedding. The ceremony was to begin at 5:00 p.m. We all gathered at the club at 2:00, in full attire for the pre-wedding photo op. And miraculously the sun did come out and the poor father of the bride began the task of hand-drying 300 chairs. At some point, after only a fraction of the pictures had been shot, the ring bearer fell asleep in the warm May sun on the front row of chairs. Now as every experienced Mother knows, naps do not necessarily make a happy child. As the child reaches a more mature toddler status of say three and a half, the NAP might work for you, but most often works against you. For some reason, known only to the cosmic forces above, many children after the NAP wake up in a worse mood than before the NAP, for which the only cure is either another NAP or the dawning of a new day, whichever comes first.

So with some trepidation, I allowed the ring bearer to sleep for about an hour. He awoke in the arms of my husband for one last photo op. I must say, that shot will not end up on the front of anyone’s photo album. Sour Puss. And then the guests began arriving. Up until the first strains of the wedding march, it was still a toss up as to whether the ring bearer was a “Go” or not.

Thank goodness for his older sister who gently prodded him down the aisle in front of her. And my, oh my, never in my wildest dreams from the fretful night before, did I suspect that he would not only walk down the aisle, properly, but hold the pillow in a horizontal fashion, and stand quietly (regally, if I might add) at the altar next to his big brother for the entire ceremony. The little whipper-snapper even had the audacity to not even once glance backwards at the crowd or me sitting on the front row. Never a prouder mother…A true Kodak moment.

Now where is that camera I bought him?