I understand the logic in your advice, but . . .

Do you ever just find yourself laughing out loud about something that happened in the past? This happens to me more than I can mention, sometimes I even find myself laughing about something that I didn't think was funny at the time, but is now hilarious. Tonight I decided to take a drive to Starbucks to get coffee, and as I was driving, for some reason my mind drifted back to a few days ago, to a conversation the Director of Charming Child's Musical had with the children at the end of rehearsal. Mr. Rick is a fabulous Director, he has an abundant amount of patience and he is so good with the children, they all love him! Each evening at the end of rehearsal he has a talk with all of the children about what they did great on, what they need to improve on, how proud he is of them, and then he allows them to ask questions. Usually the questions consist of silly little thoughts that the children conjure up just for the sake of being able to speak, such as, "I know I just asked you this at snack time, but do you know when the auditions are for the electronic voice?" To which Mr. Rick responds, "I didn't know an hour ago and I still don't know, but I promise just as I have promised you the last ten thousand times you have asked, you will be the first one to know when I find out!"
Mr. Rick also recently learned that when you are dealing with 72 children from ages 6 - 11, it is best not to mention 'pants on fire' as this could set the children off on a tangent for a half an hour!! A child asked a question about messing up his lines during the performance and Mr. Rick responded, "Don't worry about it, just keep going. Even if your pants catch on fire, just keep going!" You can imagine what happened next . . . 30 minutes of every possible scenario of pants catching on fire, my favorite though was, "What happens if the audience's pants catch on fire?" Mr. Rick responds, "Well, we will simply ask the audience to step outside, remove their pants, then kindly come back in very quietly as to not disturb all of you who are continuing your lines!"
So, this brings us to this past Thursday, end of rehearsal, Mr. Rick vs. the 72 children . . . Mr. Rick explains that it is a three-day weekend, which means it will be five days before practice, so he wants them to practice their lines and songs at home using the CD that the Music Director so kindly made each of them. He offers the suggestion to listen to the CD with Mom and Dad, teach them the songs and sing them together. "It will be a lot of fun! Mom and dad will realize how hard you have been working, they'll be really proud of you," he says. Then the little boy who is dying to be the electronic voice raises his hand. Now this little boy is probably at the far end of the age group, and whenever he speaks I have to remind myself that he is just a child although he sounds as if he is a doctor, seriously!! Teachbroeck, you know those smarty-pants kids, right? So he says, and I promise these are his exact words, and when I thought about them again today, I just had to laugh, "Mr. Rick, I understand the logic in your advice, but the last play I was in, I received the same advice, and I did teach my Mom the songs, and it was a lot of fun, but then during the performance she just WOULD NOT SHUT-UP!!"