When I was about seven years old, just a few years older than Pea is now, I spent my summers at Kelly’s Camp, outside of Chicago. One year, we were putting on a play, something about “Charlie Brown.” I don’t remember the premise, but I do remember that I was cast as none other than Charlie Brown, himself. Why they didn’t choose a boy is beyond me. Well, maybe back then it was beyond me, but looking back, this was a common theme in my life. I think my big mouth, the fact that I talked – a lot – landed me in these positions. I was not an actor, although I was the daughter of an actess, and I did not enjoy acting. But something about that motor mouth of mine always gave off the impression that I’d be good at it. And after several years of studying at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Illinois, and filling in over and over again for late ‘actors’ on infomercial sets during the year that I spent in LA, it became pretty clear that acting was indeed not something I was ever going to be good at…

But back to Charlie Brown. Before the play, we were set to do a dance number, to warm the audience up. It was a hoe-down, I recall. It must’ve been, because I can so clearly remember the red bandanas that all the kids showed up with, tied around their necks. Some were blue, some were green, but most were red. Including mine.

Recall the stories about my OCD? My nuttiness for things a certain way? Well, somehow another girl ended up with my red bandana, and she wouldn’t give it back to me. And I flipped out. And so, Charlie Brown? At that night’s performance? Was played by my counselor, as she knelt on her knees, to be at eye level with the other thespian campers.

To make matters worse, my cousin who had just moved to the states from Israel, and didn’t speak a lick of English, ran onto the stage during the production and stole the audience’s heart. Salt? Meet open wound.

Last night, Pea had a performance with her entire school. Her class sang two numbers, “La Bamba” and “It’s A Hard-Knock Life,” from “Annie.” She’d been singing the former for weeks, and knew the entire tune. Not bad with the Spanish pronunciation, either, I might add. Anyway, we dressed her up in her dirty little orphan best, and headed to the auditorium.

Here she is, clinging to one of her teachers, before she took to the stage:

Looks a little nervous, no?

We don’t know if it was actually nerves, or if it was a touch of what her mama has – a tough time adapting to a situation out of her normal routine. We’re thinking that perhaps it’s the latter, since we seemed to start the day off on that particular foot. It was her rehearsal, and it was at the auditorium of the town’s library. And she had to wear her uniform, since she was going directly to school afterwards. That threw her off. She couldn’t understand why she had to wear her uniform to the library, and why once there, she couldn’t check out any books. We should have seen it coming…

This is how she chose to perform:

(That’s her, standing with her back to the audience, her teacher’s arm wrapped around her…)

Both of her teachers tell us that she sang both songs during the performance at the top of her lungs, word for word. Nerves? I don’t think so…

Anyway, we had flowers for her, she was thrilled. Look how cute she is in her little orphan get-up (as she high-tailed it out of the auditorium. Kid could not move fast enough!):

I made her ‘costume’ in the three minutes before my husband rushed us out the door, for the drive across town to the stage. It amounts to little more than a stay stitch on her jeans, keeping a couple of torn grey patches from my husband’s old tee-shirt in place; pant legs rolled up. A white (and cheap!) tee-shirt (Hane’s boys) that was sacrificed for her art – I ripped it up a bit. We tied some kitchen twine around the jeans, as a make-shift belt, and I smudged some of my dark brown eyeshadow (that I use as liner) on her face, to look like dirt. Lastly, since she proclaimed that she would not be leaving the house in this particularly hideous get-up (“can’t I wear a dress?“), I threw a ‘bow’ in her hair, nothing more than the ripped-off hem of the same jeans that we used for the patches. It worked. She left the house. Lastly, no shoes. I didn’t think that orphans from back in the day would actually be wearing imported French tennis shoes to scrub the floors so that they’d “shine like the top of the Chrysler Building…”

We took her out to dinner afterwards, to celebrate. She had mac ‘n cheese. And some of my salmon. And then? When she was ready to go? She turned and sneezed on me. All over me. Apparently, to Pea, that is the most effective means to getting her parents to hustle out of a restaurant and take her home. And it worked.  And I was still picking noodles off of myself as we pulled into our garage.

Hard to stay mad at this sweet little face, I’ll admit. How can you resist those baby blues? I can’t…