A Chance To Sing

One of the best decisions I made early on was Friday Night Family Night. We would eat dinner, play games, tell stories, watch movies, and eat popcorn. It was inexpensive so, it was easy to do every week. It was also a blast! We had so much fun on those nights.

Now that the two older kids are teens and the youngest thinks he is, we really don't get to do this kind of family night more than once or twice a year but, we have great memories.

In a family full of musicians we naturally were going gravitate to musicals. It's a good thing that so many family films are musicals. If you cold have secretly entered our house at any moment in that first year, there was a good chance you would have caught us singing a tune from the Lion King, Aladdin, The Aristocats, or any number of animated musical films.

I know these family nights were contributing factors to all three of my kids being in school choirs. The two older ones are both involved in musical theater. All of these activities my kids are involved in are tremendous sources of joy for us. It never occurred to me that my kids would be so influenced by these nights. I was just looking for something we could all do together consistently.

I find myself smiling just writing about it!

One funny pattern that emerged during this time was my kids' affinity for two particular movies: The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

For months it seemed that every week they wanted to watch one of these two movies. They are both great movies that I grew up with. I understand why my kids loved to watch them over and over again. I was rarely able to tell them no.

I didn't know how to explain to them, in a way they would understand, that both of these films were about single dads who were struggling with the role. Both meet beautiful women with even more beautiful singing voices. These women are happy to jump in and be a mother to the children and wife and lover to the dad. They go off to live and make music together happily ever after. They get to live my dream!

Seeing each movie once or twice was inspiring. There's hope for me! But, seeing them over and over again while dealing with all the emotional upheaval of the divorce process could get a little tough. But, my kids were enjoying themselves so much that I would usually put one of these movies on, wait for them to settle in and then sneek off and start to clean up. So, I was there but, not having to pay too much attention to the movie.

All in all it was a tiny sacrifice for a lifetime of great memories, relationships and influence with my kids. It is not uncommon for my oldest son, who is approaching twenty, to say, "Dad, I found a show that the two of us would probably enjoy watching together."

When one of the kids is in a show the rest of us enjoy showing up as a family to support and be entertained. It's not a chore for the kids. It's a pleasure.

All of these wonderful gifts in our lives have grown out of me stumbling onto a way for all of us to have fun together. I am always amazed at how good life can be when we get it right. Even if we get it right by chance.

That's my view from here.