Bound

Carrying a fake cake and singing about mountains of grub; these two things would not necessarily be high on my list of Things To Give Prader-Willi Syndrome children To Do At Their School Christmas Show.

And yet, there she was, my daughter, the one with the obsession with eating and an inability to feel full up. Ambling into the school hall to the strains of the Oliver! soundtrack, carrying a giant, delicious-looking chocolate Yule log. It’s safe to say alarm bells were ringing in my head. Loud ones, marked IRONY.

But it didn’t seem to upset her. She sang, with her own unique mix of shyness and gusto (shusto? gusness?), enjoying the song, which is like every PWS kid’s dream request list:

Food, glorious food

We’re anxious to try it

Three banquets a day

Our favourite diet

Twenty minutes later, she was hula-ing in a grass skirt. (It was a Christmas holiday, apparently, if you’re wondering where the tropical theme surfaced in the special school’s festive performance). The “What the Aloha was that?” section was in between Mary & Joseph on a wheeled donkey, and some dancing Christmas trees.

I love her school shows. They’re ramshackle, random, rip-roaring, rousing and I’m running out of ‘r’s. I can’t properly describe the feeling I get when I watch; it’s wrapped around my heart, but trying to pin it to the page unravels it, and I want to stay bound.

Video is Food, Glorious Food, from Oliver! (The Musical)

Related Posts: 
Revelation
Shine

Revelation

It took several weeks of rehearsals, and some superhuman effort not to spill the beans.

But my daughter, who normally reveals any secret she’s told in world-record time, kept schtum about the big surprise in her class’s song in the Christmas Show.

And lo, it came to pass, that her and her five classmates lined up with pieces of paper spelling out C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S. and launched into an excruciating lesson in rhyming from Sir Clifford of Richardmus.

It was Cliff’s Christmas Alphabet song, which I had been warned about. It starts: ‘C is for the candy trimmed around the Christmas tree, H is for the happiness with all the fam-i-lee’ and goes downhill from there. But, you know how it is -  even a Cliff-denier like me will put up with top of the pap songs when they’re performed by a bunch of children with with huge grins on their faces, especially when one of them belongs to me.

As the verses continued, their smiles got wider. The big ‘reveal’ was coming. Mid-song, the music suddenly changed, the volume was pumped up high, that familiar driving drumbeat echoed around the hall, crunchy synths kicked in, and it all went Gangnam Style.

The audience let out a huge, actual ROAR of delight. The teenage troupe’s festive version of Korean rapper Psy’s huge, hit song saw them subsitute “Ooh, sexy lay-dee” with “Yeah, Merry Christ-mas”, and of course let out a triumphant shouts of “Wuppa SANTA STYLE!”.

My daughter and each of her classmates wigged out good and proper, doing those ridiculous and irresistable “I’m disco-dancing and riding a horse” moves.

The song, I realise now, must have been used up and down the land this Christmas, in shows and pantos. 

But last night, none of us saw it coming. And it was a blast of sheer delight.

Video is Psy - Gangnam Style (live). I'll admit the roar from the crowd in the special school hall yesterday wasn't quite as loud as this concert in Seoul.

Related post: Cliffhanger

Shine

My daughter took part in her special school's Christmas show yesterday.

If I had to pick a phrase to describe the performance, I think ‘joyous mayhem’ would just about sum it up.

The cast was a motley, gorgeous bunch of children, from primary school aged poppets to hulking great teenagers.

They clutched their scripts, lost their place, declaimed their lines to the furniture instead of eachother, got tangled up in microphone wires, forgot their cues, and wandered off and on randomly. 

They were brilliant.

Two of the teachers were on the stage with them, cajoling, reminding, helping, conducting, and just about keeping the lid on things. 

My daughter was right in the thick of it. After years at mainstream school of being Angel No. 14, or Camel No. 12, she had a starring role as Cinderella. 

The girl that just used to stare at her feet throughout nativity plays was front and centre for the first time.

I wondered whether she’d freeze. Lose her confidence. Clam up.

She didn’t. She looked out shyly from beneath her fringe, pottered about at her own speed, adjusted the microphone each time before she spoke, and read out her lines. With some real oomph.

She was given a bunch of flowers at the end. She clutched them to her chest in the car on the way home, repeating over and over that she wasn’t tired at all.

We bundled her into bed and she was out like a light. 

My world is still shining.

Video is Primal Scream - Movin' On Up