KUNG FU NOISES
The other day I had one of those parenting moments where I
could see the lesson in front of me… know the lesson needed to be
learned by the King at some point in life (but really, now??), but wanted to do
everything in my mommy power to stop time in its tracks and REWIND.
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? The King’s school
was having a talent show; or as my husband calls it, ‘an entertainment’ contest
(his talent show wounds run deep). The King decided that he wanted to
audition and decided he was going to do his first pattern in Kung Fu (patterns
are a series of moves that they learn to advance in their belts). It’s
an intricate set of moves that he has done at competition
and it’s honestly one of the cutest things you’ve ever seen – especially when
he hops back and does this little squat maneuver. [Yes, I know very little
about Kung Fu]. Anyway, he decided in conjunction with the pattern, he was also
going to join his friends in doing a ‘silly show.’ What that entailed I had no
idea, but I wasn’t sure if it contained any talent per se.
A few weeks into his preparation, I mentioned that perhaps
he should make his ‘power noises’ when doing the pattern; in competition, one
can often hear sighs, grunts and loud exhalations as a sign of power. Okay,
fine, the first time I heard it, I burst out laughing (internally of course as
the Master is damn scary), but understood it was all part of the Kung Fu vibe.
The King wasn’t so sure and said he was going to continue practicing, in
silence, and gave me the signal that he had this, so to speak, and didn’t need
my advice.
About a week out, he alerted me that he was only doing the
Kung Fu pattern and didn’t want to do the silly show. Great, let’s do
this I thought… Let’s show the world your adorable Kung Fu talent.
Morning of, he takes his outfit to school and is his usual
confident self – not much sticks to this kid, so while other parents weren’t
fans of the talent show because of the unnecessary competition, I
figured, he’s the King, he’ll be fine. So, I wished him luck and off he went.
That afternoon I picked him up. I usually spot him across
the schoolyard and he always greets me with a huge grin (followed by, ‘where’s
my snack!’). But I could immediately tell something was wrong. VERY wrong. The
second the words ‘How did it go’ fell out of my mouth, I regretted them
instantly. His face was about to crumple into a million pieces, but trying to save
face, he managed a short, ‘Let’s go!’ before the tears started quietly
streaming down his face. For blocks, it was just silent tears and him refusing
to talk to me (there is nothing more heartbreaking than silent tears).
He
finally stopped in the middle of the road, looked at me and said, ‘Mommy, they
laughed. They laughed at me!’ I said who laughed? His response, “54 children!!
54 children laughed at me when I did the noises. You said to do the noises and
they laughed at me!!"
Yeah, I now know what it feels like to be gut punched. So
thanks to me, I hand delivered my child to be laughed at in front of 54
children. Nice one Mommy. Of course, I launched into a fierce defense of his skill,
ability, his misunderstood greatness, the power of Kung Fu, the ‘people are
simply going to laugh sometimes’ defense, and that they were laughing WITH him
(not at him). Finally, grasping at straws, I said, “Remember when Dave
(his instructor) first made those noises, what did you do?” He looked at me and
said, ‘I laughed.’ …. Yeah, ok, let’s focus on that then, shall we. You
laughed. As did I. I guess the moral is,
Kung Fu power noises are funny.
Then the ultimate kicker, or at least I thought it was, who
got through and made it to the final round? Hi pals in the silly show. To his
credit and a mirror into this kid's comportment, he exclaimed that their bit was the
best, and made him laugh so hard and he wanted to see them perform in the
final. Meanwhile, my husband, hysterically chimed in that he had a similar
thing happen to him at his talent show when he was young and he never did one again (um, not
helpful, Daddy!).
To the King’s credit, he shrugged it off pretty quickly and
is already practicing singing Blackbird (Lennon/McCartney) for next year, so I
suppose the wound wasn’t that deep. At least one of us is resilient.