Papa Bear.

My birthday was last week. And the highlight of it was going to see the first grade play in the evening at Parker's school. It was The Adventures of Mother Goose and Parker was playing Papa Bear. He even had a speaking part..."Stop, Goldilocks! Stop!". I knew before I even saw it, this was going to be Broadway material.

There was a matinee performance for the rest of the school that day. When I asked Parks how it went, he assured me it was perfect, except Anthony was too afraid to come out during their part. Anthony was playing the part of baby bear and he is a friend from the next door Lifeskills classroom. Anthony does not have a lot of language yet, but he has a huge grin and a REALLY loud, awesomely cackling, infectious, screaming laugh.

That night, the stage was set. Parker's friend's mom is a professional face painter and she came early to paint the cats and bears (or kittens, I should say - three of them - they lost their mittens). There were sisters and brothers and moms and dads and grandparents filling the auditorium. The kids were filled with nervousness and excitement with pride reverberating off the walls. The songs were sung, the speaking parts were nervously spoken into the microphone. And then a short time after the Duke of York marched his men atop the hill and then back down again, the three bears made their appearance. They came from behind the curtain, holding hands with a nervous Anthony, making it a few steps onto the stage. When suddenly, Anthony let loose. Nerves, be gone! He ran around with wild laughter and then beelined back to Jack Hoerner's life-size pie near the back of the stage and jumped in. Mother Bear wasn't sure what to do with a baby bear in pie, so she followed him, with a fading smile at the audience and tried to coaxe Baby Bear out of the pie. Baby Bear came out, wildly ran around the stage and jumped in and out of the pie. Parks took one look at this craziness and decided THE SHOW MUST GO ON! and took it upon himself to do all of the parts, dancing around the stage, marching around and adding in some moves of his own...to possibly distract from the Pie Incident? I'm not sure. I do know that boy has no fear, as he mad-libbed a part at the end, waving goodbye to Goldilocks and shaking his bum back and forth in slow motion while raising his eyebrows up and down at the audience. Folks, we've got a total ham on our hands.

Yes, it was the best play ever. Broadway material? Even better.