OK, so this is pretty cool..

The sign for our child's first Broadway show — on Broadway in Times Square, no less.

God, humor, and irony

We are living proof that God has a sense of humor.

Please understand, I don't want to offend anyone with that line. But it's true.  If irony left us with the turn of the century, as some say, then we were the poster family for it in the late 1990s.

If irony did not exist, why else would we have three kids who are the same age for 16 days each year? Why would it happen within the first two years of our getting married? And why would all four of my children be born in the month of December?

When people saw us struggling to manage a toddler, two baby carriers, and a then 6-year-old at the same time, they confirmed God's role in everything. Rarely did we have a conversation without one of these three phrases, all of which managed to invoke the supreme being who resides in life's penthouse suite:

• Oh, my God.
• God bless you.
• Thank God it's not me.

We've heard everything, from sophomoric to sympathetic. My favorite was about Ben and Emma: "Awww... They're twins. Are they identical?" Somehow I always managed to avoid asking back, "Have you changed a diaper recently?"

But I digress.

The point of this is that irony persists in our lives, as does proof that God's sense of humor remains pretty much intact. For example, this year on the week of Christ's birth, we will have one child in New York while our girls are in Orlando performing in a "Frosty Follies" revue at Disney World. And that will be just after the oldest finishes two plays in North Carolina.

How is that not irony, or some higher order's way of having a small laugh at our parenting expense?

Not that it's a bad thing. Far from it, in fact. We are very lucky that our children are healthy, talented, and smart, and that we are in the position to give them opportunities to have fun and be successful. And we're very fortunate to have a strong faith, especially given that it is so battle tested. 

The next time God chooses to be a stand up comedian for a day, however, I wish he would look elsewhere.

The box

How do I describe our kids? Think about “the box.”

• Nicholas and Ben: “Outside the box.”
• Katharine: “Where’s the box?”
• Emma: “Did you know that when you leave the lid on the box, the little light stays on?”

The juggling act

One of our largest parenting challenges — and believe me, we have a number of those — is striking the appropriate balance in paying attention to each of the four kids. It doesn't help that all basically like and do the same things (dance, acting, theater, in case you haven't guessed by now), and are — like all siblings — genetically programmed to compete with each other.

At times, life in our house feels like a long, constant guitar pull, in which musicians perform in a round-robin format and end by turning to the next singer with the implied, "Top that!" At others, you watch helplessly as Vince Lombardi retires and is replaced by Phil Bengston; no matter how good the successor may be, it's impossible to follow a legend.

All four have their strengths. Nicholas definitely has the big picture gene — he's "directed" the family shows for as long as we can remember (see the "Pooper Heroes" video below) — as well as comedic timing and a very nice singing voice. His greatest strength, in my opinion, is in art; he did a beautiful job of illustrating a children's book we are working on as a family project.

Kate brings a combination of ditzy, otherworldly humor and a long, lithe dancer's body to the proceedings. Emma's strengths are tap, gymnastics, and a sly, dry, very funny sense of humor. (Definitely she was an adult in the womb — see "The Zoo Story.")

They all are smart, sharp kids, children any parent would be proud to have. But I know it's hard for them not to feel overshadowed by Ben, the flip-a-switch kid.

This is the child who potty-trained in one day at age 3, rode a two-wheel bicycle after an afternoon at age 4, won national and world aerobic gymnastics championships by age 9, and is now part of the company of his first Broadway show ("Ragtime") at age 11. Everything, it seems on the surface, comes easy to him.

This makes the juggling act even more difficult for us, his parents, because it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. You can't compare "Macbeth" at the Folger Shakespeare Library to a fifth grade class production. Both have merit; both provide you with opportunities.

As his parents, we've seen how hard Ben works at his craft, and how much he has grown as a performer (and human being) as a result of the chances he's gotten over the past two years. We know how tough it is to get up for school at 7:30 a.m. after not getting home until midnight because of a show. We have heard from his fellow actors and directors that he is a professional who is on time and on cue, ready to do anything at a moment's notice. We know that his peers, not just his siblings, don't understand him sometimes. And yet he has perservered.

I'm just as proud of that as I am of Emma's A on a project, or Kate's self-portrait that hangs in the hallway of her new school, or of seeing Nicholas as a member of his homecoming court. (Although, in true Nicholas fashion, he ditched the dance afterward.)

Our mantra has been to help each child develop and grow at his or her own pace, and to give them the training and opportunities they need as they move forward. Are we always successful at the juggling act? No. Do we always try? Yes.

Someday, I hope all of our kids will look back and remember that we did try, that we love them, and that we were there to support them when it counted. Isn't that all you can truly hope for as a child?

There's a moment you know...

I can think of several moments that fit this line from "Spring Awakening" (2009's summer obsession) as long as you're willing to be liberal in the interpretation.

• Seeing Jill sing.
• Peace Day.
• The red overcoat.
• The 21 week ultrasound.
• The nurse saying, "You're having a boy ... and a girl."
• My baby, blue and gasping for air.
• Moving to the D.C. area.
• "Who Let the Frogs Out..."

That last one, in many ways, is why we're here in this position today. It's hard to believe it was just three (very long) years ago. But it was June 2006 when Ben and Emma performed the song as part of their jazz class in Metropolitan's production of "The Little Mermaid."

Simply put, Ben stole the number and show — a lengthy extravaganza that showcased MFAC's growing student body — not once, but twice over the weekend. It was when we saw he was at home, literally, on the stage.

A year and a half later, people still mentioned that night to us at random moments, with almost an "I was there..." aura about it. By this time, Ben had auditioned for and signed with an agent.

Quickly, he learned rejection, how you could get so tantalizingly close to something big and then be turned down because you weren't the right height, weight, or hair color. But by the fall of 2007, he was cast as Tiny Tim in Ford's Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol," and life had changed forever...

Bored? This is what they do...

Ben had a rare day off recently, so he decided to make a movie with Emma. Enjoy.

The Zoo Story

It started over the word “but” — or “butt,” depending on how you spell it.

When we first moved to the DC area in 2001, that was a big word around our house. For a brief period, we had to admonish our children and tell them not to use the word as it relates to the human anatomy. But (no pun intended) we soon found ourselves unable to use the word in a conjunctive sense without being told why it was a bad idea.

“Oooh, Daddy used the word,” they said in joyous glee (glee always comes in unison). “Daddy, you’re not supposed to say that.”

“But,” I protested, “that wasn’t the bad butt. It was, uh, the good but.”

Thus was born the “good but” and the “bad butt,” a slight, subtle, but nonetheless important distinction for my children to draw at that nascent phase of their lives.

If nothing else, pre-school children are literal. And when you have three kids only 11 1/2 months apart, literal comes at you with the volume and intensity of a presidential press conference.

So my wife and I had to find some way to bring compound sentences back into our home speech.

“The good but,” I explained, “is when you say, ‘I want to do this, but I can’t right now.’ The bad butt is when you refer to someone’s bottom.”

That seemed to work for a time, until my youngest daughter and I went to the zoo. We were walking from site to site on a brisk January day. We saw the pandas, the giraffes, the elephants. And then we went to the beaver exhibit.

“Daddy, where’s the beaver?”

“He’s in his house.”

“What do you call his house?”

“Well, Emma,” I said, steeling myself. “It’s a dam.”

“Oh, Daddy…” she said with a level of sincerity only petite 4-year-olds can muster. “That’s a bad word.”

“No, no Emma. It’s not the bad ‘damn.’ It’s the good dam.”

“Oh,” she said, her wheels turning as onlookers snickered. “So you mean there’s a good but, and a bad butt, and a good dam, and a bad damn.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Daddy,” Emma said with a sense of confidence. “I don’t say the bad butt, and I don’t say the bad damn. I just say shit.”

I had no retort, just a sheepish reply.

“Well, Emma, there’s no such thing as good shit.”

And a man walking by said, “I beg to differ.”

Tell a Story in 100 Words or Less

“All My Life” — I just wanted to hear that song live. “Can’t do it,” the 74-year-old legend said as he picked at the piano. “Don’t like the introduction.” He mentioned my love for the song in a letter he wrote to my (now) wife, a letter framed in my basement today. But he still wouldn’t sing it. Then, one night at a show, Charles Brown asked the two of us to stand, told the framework of our story, explained that we had waited for each other without knowing it, and sang the song. It was the night of my life.

Need Proof?

A summer movie project. Yes, we still have neighbors who speak to us...

Musical obsessions and circle backs

Each summer, which is when we see Nicholas for the most sustained period of time, the kids find a new musical to obsess over. Usually this starts with Nicholas and spreads to the rest of the troupe like swine flu, eventually taking over all of our lives and not letting go until the next one comes along.

A quick rundown of just the last five years:

• 2005: "Wicked" and "Mamma Mia" (Nick).
• 2006: "Rent," (the movie, then the show), "A Chorus Line," (revival), "High School Musical."
• 2007: "Hairspray" and, sadly, "HSM2" (the movie, not the high school play Nicholas was in last year).
• 2008: "Avenue Q," "Mamma Mia" (the movie dragged the rest of us in), and, yes, "HSM3" (but only Emma, Ben, and Nick this time).
• 2009: "Spring Awakening" (all except Emma) and "Next to Normal."

This does not include shows the kids perform in with Metropolitan Fine Arts Center. Think about the entire Disney canon there, plus "Annie" and "The Wizard of Oz," and you can see why I made the "obsession" reference.

What do I mean by circle backs?

• "Annie" was the first show Jill and I did together; last year, we watched our kids perform in it.
• We found out Jill was pregnant with Kate during "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"; two years ago, while our entire family was participating in another production of the show, my father died.
• "The Wizard of Oz" not only permeates society, it runs through our family like a bad computer virus. I served as an assistant stage manager for one production, while Kate made her stage debut in another at 6 weeks old because Jill was playing Glinda. Nicholas has done the show three times, and the trio performed in an MFAC production in 2008.

Considering that Jill was pregnant with Ben and Emma when she did "Annie Get Your Gun" — they made their stage debuts in utero — I can't wait to see what happens when that one gets revived. Of course, that show also has a circle back of its' own: It was the first Broadway show Jill and I saw together as a couple.

It won't be the last.

Dinner Theater 101: About Us

In our family, we don't do dinner — we do dinner theater. Come over to our house and inevitably you'll get a show of some kind.

I'm not sure when this started, except that I can't remember a time when it hasn't occurred. All four children have the performer gene.

By way of introduction, let's provide you with cliff notes on how we got to this point:

Jill and I met in 1994 when I spoke at her Career Day at Reidsville Middle School, where she was the counselor. We became friends, and did a show ("Annie") for the local community theater group. I was nearing the end of a five-year marriage/seven-year relationship that had produced a son (Nicholas, the now 16-year-old); Jill was living with someone and engaged.

Later that year, she married (I was, ironically, the wedding photographer). The following spring, I divorced. That fall, she divorced. The next year, we got married.

Several months later, we had Katharine (now 12). Just 11 1/2 months after that, Ben and Emma (now 11) came along. And we haven't stopped since...

We moved to the Washington, D.C., area in 2001 and work for associations that support K-12 public education. Emma and Kate live for dance, while Nicholas is a singer/actor/emerging artist in North Carolina.

Ben? We'll leave that for another posting.

From the Bottom Up

So you've come to this blog and reached the bottom, the spot at which we're supposed to give you the reasons why we're doing this now and for the foreseeable future. And it probably wouldn't hurt to have some context for the title, either.

I'm not sure why I picked 6:30 a.m. on a rainy, freezing Sunday October morning to finally sign up with Google, except that this is something that has been on my to-do scroll for months, ever since my wife Jill brought it up during dinner.

Listening to the four kids chatter relentlessly, intermittently interrupting the proceedings to show off a new dance move, sing a song, or do some standup, she looked across the table and said, "Our life should be a reality show."

Jill has a point, especially now because we are living in two different cities with kids who have only five years separating them in age, yet attend four schools in three states. (I'll explain later...)

At the same time, I'm not quite ready for cameras to stalk us relentlessly or for my bride to get a short blond haircut and a sudden attitude. And I don't want to be forced to explain, ad infinitum, why three kids are exhibitionist wannabes while the fourth refuses to go on camera, preferring instead to look at the fine print of the non-existent contract with some fourth-rate public access cable channel that is following us around.

But I do think, at least in part, that we have a life worth chronicling. So here we are... We hope those of you who are top-to-bottom readers have enjoyed it so far. For those who read from the bottom up, welcome.