The three of us in my family are enthusiastic fans of musical films such as “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, “Mary Poppins” and “Singin’ in the Rain”. We adore the singing, dancing and acting – even thought it is at times a bit campy. There is something extremely special about the innocence, and the lack of irony, in that age of filmmaking.
Something occurred to me recently, while watching Julie Andrews transition smoothly from speaking her lines to Jane and Michael to all of a sudden singing “A Spoonful of Sugar”: My daughter has never once mentioned the singing as something strange. I find this a bit odd . Do your kids ever question why or how characters in musical films constantly move, with ease, from conversation to full song without missing a beat? You would think that it would seem out-of-the-ordinary and slightly bizarre to kids who have no experience with this in real life. It seemed to me that the logical next step is to go through life, if only for a day, as if we were in a musical ourselves. We spend days both talking and singing to each other, just like they do in “Mary Poppins”!
Imagine sitting at the breakfast table, having a conversation about the day’s weather forecast or whatever it is you may be discussing and all of a sudden your child is singing out her wish to have a toasted bagel with peanut butter. She then proceeds to talk for a bit more then harmonizes that “wouldn’t it be cute, if I could have some fruit…I could have so much fun, if I were eating a juicy plum!”
You are sure to have some silly and quite memorable moments living in your own personal musical!
As an alternative, spend part of the day pretending to mouth words, where your lips are moving as if you are talking but no sound is coming out. It is simply nonsense but is so much fun. I like to make excessive hand motions at the same time, adding to the ridiculousness of the experience. This is sure to make the little ones crack up laughing or at the very least place an odd “What the heck is going on?” type of look on their faces!
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