A bit of Christmas Cheer (it's a long one, you don't have to read it)

Owen has found his singing voice! The past month in Primary he has become the loudest one. They all sang in church on sunday and, honestly, if Owen hadn't shown up, it would have been sort of silent on the stand. There just aren't very many kids in our primary and we had maybe 8 there that day singing. But Owie belted out the words like a champ. He says he loves singing.

Doug and I also went to his kindergarten holiday program and again, everytime his teacher would put her hands to her ears to have them sing louder, Owen would crank up the volume and we could hear him all the way in the back. Of course, I sat there and cried the entire time. It seems like the kindergarten program is one of those things on the list of firsts that means your baby is really growing up. He was so proud and excited to be up there, i just could keep it in.

Or it could have been hormones. Acutally, i only had two emotions during the entire kindergarten presentation and they were at the opposite ends of the bi-polar spectrum. Blubbery pride and utter... should i say hatred? It's an awfully strong word to use when you're talking about other kindergarten parents so maybe i'll just say that i was extrodinarily annoyed and if i could have slapped every person in that room, i would have. hmmm. that sounds pretty strong, too.

I felt like this for two reasons. Almost every single one of these big, pushy parents completely ignored the principal's request to stay seated during the show so the kids wouldn't be distracted by yelling, waving parents. About 30 seconds after that announcement the kids started walking to some very happy christmas music from the back, down the isles up to the stage.

At that point EVERY stupid parent in that entire place stands up and starts yelling out their kids name and taking pictures and literally jumping up and down to get their kids attention. Are you kidding me? Didn't anyone just hear what the principal said?? The woman in front of us stood up practically the whole time with her big old camcorder to make sure she got every movement her child made on tape. Which is great except anyone sitting behind her was blocked from seeing their kids. Including me!!

And of course there is the family that saved 12 PRIME seats in the middle front for people who just couldn't quite manage to make it on time. So, again, as the kids are walking down the isles a huge family of people walk in 5 minutes late and have to go up the same isles the kids are coming down, and the kids are getting smushed and lost in this crowd of loud, completely oblivious people who don't just try to quickly make it to their seats but keep standing so they can loudly greet each other one by one as they scoot in the row. This is AFTER the program had started and just two rows in front of us. It was sooooo ridiculous I nearly had a coronary. People are so rude!!

Then the school changed the words of "We wish you a Merry Christmas" to "We wish you a Happy Holiday" and that made me really mad. And to top it all off when we pulled out my camera to take the first picture, the battery died.

It was a good thing Owen was so adorable and sang so loud. He was the only thing that saved all those people from getting a big smack in the face from the angry pregnant woman in the back.