Picking Favorites

Hyrum announced that he wanted to listen to Hark the Herald Angels Sing during dinner tonight (because we had just watched it from the First Presidency Christmas Devotional). Well, he didn't have any Hark the Angels on his playlist, so we need to pick one.

There are only 6 versions on this computer right now. So for dinner we listened to Mannheim Steamroller, Anthony Way Choirboy's Christmas, Julie Andrews, two Mormon Tabernacle Choirs, and Bing Crosby. After each one I asked which one he liked best. His answer was invariably "Hark All Ye Nations."

Until we were all done. Then the vote was in: Bing Crosby wins. Sometimes simplicity wins out.

(And now he's singing Hark All Ye Nations again.)

Small Moments of Christmas Happiness

Over the last couple years, my musical tastes expanded significantly, and there's a part of me that hasn't worried per se about my parents' reaction but has significantly doubted how well they fit into the family

Then for Christmas Pop not only bought me some of the new music I'd recently discovered, but liked it enough that he got it for Grandma Boo as well.

It felt a little like indirectly giving a Christmas present. :)

The Christmas Bride

For our church Christmas party, each organization was supposed to come up with a song or a sketch or something to perform. As I told the elders, I LIVE for this stuff. So I was put in charge of coming up with a sketch. I pitched several ideas and the one that stuck was a parody of The Princess Bride. I got my food policy textbook off to the publisher by Thursday and wrote the script. The main players rehearsed it that night and we performed Friday. So the fight scene is completely impromptu. A friend recorded it and put it on YouTube. Sorry for the background noises of children, but you can hear us pretty well for the most part. The video is below the fold or linked here.

Being Pinocchio (and Mario)

One morning Hyrum asked to see the part of Pinocchio where he is brought to life. So we did. Pinocchio has become a regular household name since. He asks that Grandma Boo and Mommy address him as "Hello, Pinocchio." Here are a few other conversations we've had with him:

H: I am Pinocchio. Mommy, you be Jiminy Cricket. You're my conscience.
J: Well, sit down and watch the Tabernacle Choir then.
H: I'm sitting here because you're my conscience.


This conversation happened while Hyrum was in his Woody pajamas about to go to bed.
H: I am Mario, Luigi, Woody, and Pinocchio. I love Pinocchio most.
D: Why?
H: Because he loves his daddy.
[Daddy melted to hear that one and gave the little boy anything he wanted.]

A few minutes later as I get Hyrum into his saque:
D: Okay, are you Mario climbing in the pipe, Woody climbing into your stagecoach, or Pinocchio climbing in the whale?
H: I am Pinocchio climbing in the whale. Daddy will get me out in the morning.

He didn't much want to go to bed, so he didn't want to give Joy, Grandma Boo, Grandma Straw, or Pop hugs. But he was willing to hug Jiminy, Figaro, Cleo, and Gepeto.

Hyrum looked at this blog post and said, "That's Hyrum being Pinocchio. A picture of Jiminy Cricket? A picture of you being Mario?"

After some discussion, we cleared up that he meant a picture of him being Mario. So here are Daddy being Mario (L) and Hyrum being Mario (R)

[Update 5/29/11: There used to be pictures on this post, but we've gotten an insane number of unknown visitors to see them. While we haven't gone private, we aren't necessarily asking for the entire world to beat a path to our door. So I've taken them down. Sorry. - DW]

Hyrum quotes on vacation

Daddy said he wants me to be happy.

[Pop and Boo have an ornament of Prince Philip and Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, dancing. Her dress changes colors. Hy loves it.]
Dear Father Heaven. Thank Thee for Hy and the Princess.

[When I got him up from his nap today with a Grover doll on the other side of the bed]
I was finger painting with Grover. He's in time out.
D: Why is Grover in time out?
He hit me.
D: That's a good reason to be in time out. How long will he be in time out?
[Hyrum thought about that question, then rolled over and gave Grover a big hug]

[Hyrum wandered into Pop's office while he was on a headset phone call. Hyrum somehow figured out that Pop was working and waited patiently for 5 solid minutes without saying anything until Pop was done. Then he spoke up. This is much more patient and polite than he is when he wants to talk to someone who is speaking to someone else in the room.]

We missed that holiday...

Featuring the artistic talents of all three Watsons: Joy drew the outline, Derrill cut the holes based on themes and variations on the outline, and Hyrum gave chose the number and style of the teeth.

Hy dressed as Buzz Lightyear for Halloween, Joy repeated her role as the romantic Roman, and I came dressed in 22 t-shirts ... for some strange, esoteric reason. If anyone has pictures -- of me being wrapped up as a mummy by the Petersons, for instance -- please send them. There were several other Buzzes among the children.

Hy enjoyed Trick or Treating more than expected. He followed all the other kids around, said trick or treat, and filled his bag full of candy we knew he'd never eat.

Wrong again. Halloween candy became amazingly popular, in no small part thanks to Mario Party 8, which includes characters that eat candy that produces fireworks and changes their shapes. He wanted candy instead of cookies, actually ATE Tootsie Rolls in multiple flavors, and played with all sorts of strange, new, artificially-colored shapes for weeks.


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Performing the Chorus

Last year, Hyrum stood on the front pew at church enthralled as Pop conducted and Daddy accompanied the rest of the family and the choir in singing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. He joined in the conducting, making a Christmas memory for most of the congregation that has gone down in legend.

I warned Pop last month that Hyrum probably wouldn't be conducting this year. He doesn't see Mommy doing that every Sunday and his enthusiasm for conducting has died down. He's much more into singing right now, and I joked that Hy might try to join in.

The last month he has joined me for most of my practice time as I tooled up to move the Chorus from piano to the organ. He was always very excited during rehearsals, but regularly interrupted rather than conduct, never sang along, and generally had an exuberantly good time running around.

That was more or less true yesterday too as the choir had its next-to-last practice -- and the first one on the Chorus. Our plan was that Hy would sit with a family in the ward, with Pop and Boo joking that they could probably auction off the right to care for Hy during the program on Facebook and get some pretty good offers.

Then on the last rehearsal Sunday morning, Hyrum stood in the middle of the choir next to Mommy and Grandma Boo and ... sang. I'm not sure which parts he was following, but I had a good view of him from the organ singing along. He sang the whole thing.

Joy and I looked at each other. We had the most scathingly brilliant idea since moving the Chorus to organ. Every year, Pop invites anyone from the congregation who has sung the Chorus before to come up and join the choir. We invited a good friend to watch Hyrum during the program whom we knew would come forward and told her to bring Hyrum. And so she did.

Pop says he just about lost it (his voice caught with tearful emotion) when he saw Hyrum walking up the aisle to the choir. He stood directly front and center next to Mommy and Grandma Boo again.

And he sang.

He sang and he sang and he sang.

He, himself, the Hyrum sang the whole piece.

Sometimes he may even have been on key, but that's not the point. It was a lot of fun to spare my eyes from the sheet music and the keyboards for a few seconds just to watch my son sing.

I feel very sad for the many members of the congregation who came up after to say they had missed seeing Hyrum conduct or sing -- some of them said they had brought camera phones just to record his performance. Since he was front and center, Pop, the organ, and the piano effectively blocked most people's view. Those in the choir generally noticed and talked about how adorable he was. The nice part of where Hy stood, though, is that since Pop didn't get a chance to see Hyrum conduct last year, at least he got to see him sing this year. Although, when he did look at Hy, he choked up, so he tried not to pay much attention.

I learned how to play piano with a vision of someday playing while Pop conducted. That was my dream and ambition, fulfilled when I was only 12. Today I played with Pop conducted ... and my son sang. My cup runneth o'er.

A Very Mario Christmas 2-3

Joy has been doing an advent calendar with Hyrum this month based on an article from The Friend magazine. Each day it asks a question about the nativity and they read a scripture from the New Testament to answer it. We've already mentioned Mario interrupting the story. Saturday the question was: "Who did the king send to find the baby Jesus?" Hyrum answered, "Mario!" ... Sorry, Mario, but your Savior is in another manger!

Hy and Joy have also worked up a new rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Joy has come up with eight days so far, but Hyrum only cares about the first two: two Mario and Luigis and a Buzz Lightyear coloring book.

Strange Dream: Fictional Mandela

I woke up at 3:30 this morning from a strange, detailed dream. The setting was a fictional middle-income country severely divided by race. This may be the first time I dreamed I was black. I saw several scenes from the main character's life, in early childhood living on the streets and as a senior politician who sometimes seemed to have lost connection with his people and sometimes seemed to really be part of them. I don't know the names of any of the people, so in my lack of imagination I'm calling him Nelson even though the only resemblance is a vague similarity of setting.

I wrote down the last scene I saw before I woke up. I'll put it below the fold in case you're interested in it - just over 2 pages long. I should warn you that the scene includes references to fecal matter and refers to it with words I don't use. If that makes you squeamish, you are so advised. This is no way an attempt at social commentary about any person or people.

Nelson had just finished giving yet another speech at a five star hotel before a large group of influential people on the social inequalities and politics of the country. If it were a movie, this would be somewhere in the late middle when the protagonist is starting to feel worn down by the many pressures on him, doubting if any good will come of all his efforts, and getting cynical about the whole thing. Right now, he is so tired that the people around him are blurring and he's not entirely cognizant of what is going on, but is fighting on regardless.

Collateral Spelling

As part of showing Hy more and more movies to broaden his horizons, he sees a certain introductory movie quite regularly. So at some point he decided that THX was not only an essential part of movies but a theater experience all its own.

When we show him his ten minutes of movie in the morning, he regularly asks us to start the movie from the beginning just to see the THX sequence.

So it is little wonder then that he takes not-Scrabble tiles and spells out THX with them.

He's been able to read Bob, Disney, Mom, and Dad for a while now. He's recently also acquired THX, Wall-E, Toy Story, Pixar ["And you jump on the I!"], and most of the time Hyrum, but he also thinks Hanes spells Hyrum.

Thank you, Pixar and LucasArts.