James and the Giant Peach and Talkative Superstar Clarissa

The main event of today was watching Ammon and Clarissa perform in the Arches play James and the Giant Peach. It was fanciful, creative and fun and the kids did an awesome job bringing the story to life. Ammon and Clarissa were very cute and were able to spot us in the audience and wave before the play was over. Being in kindergarten and preschool, Ammon and Clarissa had minor roles, but they seemed to really enjoy being a part of the production. Ammon did his part with gusto, and love waving at the end. And Clarissa had her five seconds of fame. At that very end when all the cast was receiving their applause, they trotted the preschoolers across the stage from one side to the other. Clarissa broke away from the pack at center stage, and kept slowly walking forward until she was the center of attention and just waved to everyone who was clapping with a dazed awestruck look on her face. The teacher who was shuttling preschoolers had to go grab her hand and pull her off the stage with the rest of the preschoolers. Lily and I were besides ourselves with laughter. To top it off, when I picked up Clarissa at the end of the play, she ran into my arms and squealed with delight, “I felt like a superstar!!”.

Clarissa has been exceptionally talkative and precocious lately. Today it felt like she woke up and started talking and didn’t stop until she finally fell asleep at 10:00 PM. Below is a video and three audio files of her talking between 9 and 10 PM. I took the three audio files while she was in her bed and she was supposed to be going to sleep. I was cuddling with her during the first two and right outside her door on the last one.