Les Miserables

Last week, the day after we returned home from our big trip, we took the kids to the Sleepy Hollow rendition of one of my favorite musicals--Les Miserables.  

Gratefully, it was toned down a bit to be family friendly, and the kids absolutely loved it!  Afterwards, Spencer and Maddi were delighted to meet with some of the leads and congratulate them on a work well done.  We missed getting a picture of Spencer with Javert, but here Maddi is with Cosette.

A funny--or maybe not so funny--post script to this post:  After seeing the musical, the kids begged to listen to the soundtrack in the car whenever we went anywhere.  I agreed, but made sure that a few of the songs were skipped over when we listened.  Some of the songs, like the opening song, we did still listen too.  It was a bit of an internal battle, since we are so incredibly guarded about what the kids listen to and watch, but in the end, we decided to let them listen to it. A few days later, we reaped the consequence of our actions when the kids set up a make-shift play and I heard Spencer and Maddi singing, "Look down, look down, it's hot as hell below!"  I'm not sure if this counts as swearing or not, since they are referring to hell as a place; nevertheless, it was time to sit down and have our first conversation about swear words.  I had dreaded having the conversation, and not because I thought my kids would ever be tempted to swear.  My real reason for not wanting to have it was because I knew once we did, they would forever be aware of swear words, much as they already were with hearing the Lord's name in vein.  They always point out anytime anyone in a movie does that, and there is always a bit of a flinch as they do.  Now we will be adding new "flinches" to their lives.  Still, it had to be done, so I sat them down and gave them the spill.  Afterwards, Madison pulled me aside and in the most serious and frank voice asked, "Mom, are their swear words than hell?"  "Yes," I admitted, so glad I was the one getting to have this conversation with her and not some child on the back of a school bus somewhere.  "Will you tell me what they are mom?  I don't ever want to accidentally say another swear word again."  She was so sincere, I had to comply.  I pulled Spencer back into our circle and then proceeded to write down some of the swear words I knew had been in movies we had watched.  I wasn't quite ready for the "big" ones, but we covered a few of the more common ones, ones that since then I have realized are even more common than even I remembered.  It was a bittersweet day.  On the one hand, a bit of innocence was lost.  On the other hand, isn't this the way it is supposed to work--parents teaching and guarding their children against the world.  I sure hope so, and I hope it will be a pattern of talks to come in our future over things a little more serious than swear words.