My Son, The Class Clown

Yep, it's official. Jax is the class clown. There have been little things throughout the school year that made us suspect this, but yesterday we witnessed firsthand the behavior that makes our kid so popular among 3-year olds. He's a total goofball, and the kids seem to love him for it!

Yesterday Jax had an end-of-the-year performance at his school. We've had the event on our calendar for weeks. Anh made sure to keep his schedule clear so he could attend, and Aunt Nguyen even took off work for a couple of hours so she could make it. We knew the program would be centered around music because Jax has been singing the same 4 or 5 songs for weeks, and when I'd praise him for singing so well, he'd tell me that he was "practicing for my program." Clearly, the teachers had been working hard with all of the kids to insure a wonderful performance.

So, finally, the big day arrives. The program was scheduled to start at 11am, but the parents were told seating would begin at 10:15am. Being a rookie, this seemed insane to me. Jax attends a very small school. Why in the world would we need to be there 45 minutes early to get a seat? I was clueless, but thank God I followed the instructions and arrived early. You would have thought that we were fighting for the last seats on the Ark! Parents were cutting each other off and pushing to get to "the best seats." So much for setting a good example for the kids!

We took seats on the end of the 3rd row. It looked like we'd have a good view and be able to snap a few pictures and some video of the program. What we didn't account for was that the first 2 rows of parents would go into a frenzy when the kids came out. They were jumping up and down out of their seats. Lunging from side to side trying to shoot pictures and video around each other, completely clueless to the fact that there were rows of parents behind them that might actually want to see their kids. Oh, and they weren't inconsiderate for a few minutes. No, they acted this way throughout the program.

At first, I was beyond annoyed. Neither Nguyen nor I could get one decent picture of Jax. I didn't need to capture every second like the other parents, just a couple of decent pictures of my kid to share with the grandparents and post to the blog! My frustration level was rising and rising with each song, but then I realized something. My kid wasn't even singing, and it wasn't because he didn't know the songs. I had listened to him sing these songs perfectly for weeks. No, my kid wasn't singing because he was too busy dancing around and putting on his own little choreographed show. He definitely doesn't suffer from stage fright! Quite the opposite really. He seems to thrive on having an audience, but the audience also seems to bring on some form of ADD which made him incapable of following the rehearsed routine.

By this point, my growing fury had subsided. As Anh and I sat there observing the class clown, we were somewhat amused. I mean, he wasn't behaving like a brat or anything. He just seemed oblivious to the fact that he was supposed to be performing the program they had practiced for weeks. We decided Jax was just being 3. We noticed that most of the kids weren't singing. Some were standing there with glazed-over looks on their faces. One had thrown in the towel and was actually sitting on his mother's lap in the front row. Ultimately, we were just thankful that he wasn't the kid on the other end of the stage that cried throughout the entire show. Yeah, at least he wasn't the crybaby!