Clare had originally auditioned with her older sister in June of 2008, but at only four years of age, decided that she wasn’t ready to be in a show, and dropped out. Always certain that one day she would be ready, when a spot opened up, she auditioned again and now in the show as one of the 3 girls who play Gretl.

This is the point where our family life gets truly nutty. Our calendar for taking kids to shows, dance lessons, etc. is quite an entertaining read. No kidding.

Clare’s doing really well. She had her first show Labour Day weekend and has been doing an average of 3 shows a week. They recently announced that The Sound of Music will be closing January 3rd, which is too bad because it would be nice for her to have a longer run.

Clare splits her time between the two ‘families’ of kids in the cast, so she’s on stage with her sister Hannah sometimes, and others she’s with the other cast. She seems to have fun with both.

Watching your kids perform in a giant theatre is weird. One of the most striking things for me this time out was hearing Clare call Burke Moses “Daddy” on stage.  I can honestly say I’ve never heard any of my four children address anyone else that way…it’s odd.

Another interesting thing about all this is that Clare’s only five (almost six). I don’t really remember much about when I was 5 going on 6, but I wonder how much of this she’ll remember when she’s older. Since the internet never forgets anything, I guess she’ll be able to tell me in twenty years or so.

We are not a showbiz family. We have no experience with professional theatre and so it’s a great adventure for all of us.

So far, we’re still in kind of ‘holy crap’ mode. You never want to get your hopes up too high, and you keep your attitude light so that you don’t set yourself and your kids up for disappointment in a process that is so fraught with peril.

Since we’re new to this whole thing, I’m going to track it a bit for everyone. It’ll be a diversion from my original focus here at the LoweLife, but that wasn’t really working anyway. I’m taking a page from 43 folders here and am gonna blog the crap out of this.

Coming soon:

You have no idea all the stuff that you have to consider when your 8-year-old child is going to be receiving a regular paycheque. Or maybe you do? I’m gonna tell you once I figure it out.

I am the proud father of home-schooled kids. This is the 3rd year that my wife has got our kids started on their school curriculum first thing in the morning on the day after labour day. We’ve got kindergarten, grade one, and grade three all going on at the kitchen table with our pre-schooler absorbing things by osmosis in the background.

Since we’re in a fairly traditionally structured family, I don’t have much to do with the presentation of the material to my kids, but this year we’re trying to figure out how I can contribute to their learning either by doing Saturday ‘special’ classes, or evenings. That should be fun, if I can come up with something interesting. I’ve been wondering about working with my 6 and 8 year olds on user interface design. I figure they might have insights on what works and what doesn’t. They don’t get a lot of computer time, but when they do (30 minutes per week), I am always stunned by how quickly they learn the interface and make it work for them.

Wish me luck.