It's Here! It's Here! It's Finally Here!!

I was very surprised that day last spring when the kids came home from school excited to turn on cable access and watch their friends in the Lip Synch Show. We turned on Channel 3 and sure enough, there were their kindergarten through fourth grade friends on grainy video two-stepping and mouthing the words to such classics as "I'm Gonna Tell on You" and Chubby Checker's "The Twist." Adorable! Engaging! Cute as a bug on a button!

My kids could wipe the stage with all of them.

So, I've bided my time over the past year, waiting for that much-anticipated handout to come home-- and finally it did. "It's time to pick your partner and your music! Lip Synch rehearsals start the first Tuesday in February!"

It was Go Time. I gathered the girls and varied audio-visual materials and went to work on my pitch.

1.) Okay, kids, here's the plan: First we go to the thrift shop, and we pick up suit jackets and hats and dark sunglasses, and dress you like this:




2.) Then, we slit the back of the jackets, under which you will be wearing leotards, and to the back of the leotards we attach something like this:

3.) Then we learn a few moves:






And in the middle of what I thought was a thorough, informative and energetic demonstration for my six and eight-year-old daughters---a demonstration, I might add, that my three-year-old daughter very much enjoyed--- right in the middle, my eight-year-old raised her hand as she would in school, and when I paused to acknowledge her, she looked me right in the eye and said two words: "Mom. No."

"B-but it would be cute!" I stammered.

The six-year-old backed her up, "We don't want to."

And just like that, they left to play Webkins.

So I ask you: if children are not an excuse to hold weekly dress rehearsals for (Real or Imaginary) Variety Shows, why do we have them again?