Soapbox

She’s a Big Girl Now

So I’ve got this kid…and yeah, she’s a big girl now.

Katie has always liked to sing. Well, it would be unnatural if she didn’t. The day we brought her home from the hospital, her father disappeared with her as I was downstairs with the happy (loud) family that had congregated to welcome her. When I went in search of them I found he had laid her on our bed and was singing for her: "Kathy’s Song" by Paul Simon. Quietly, sweetly, he was wooing his daughter to the sound of his voice and to the love of music, and she was hooked.

When she was in 7th grade she had a solo in the school play. She refused to let me even hear her practice, let alone help her. All those voice lessons I had were of no interest to her. "Go away, Mom!" Of course it turned out she didn’t need my help. After an assortment of children croaked and shrieked their way through their songs, the spotlight at last hit my daughter and she turned to the darkened auditorium and in a clear, sweet treble voice sang her song, beautifully on pitch and audible to the back row. I nearly cried.

In high school she was acepted into the Chorale, which is huge. Huge amount of work and responsibility, a huge support network and a huge opportunity. 2 weeks ago they performed a selection of sacred, gosple and old spiritual music at St. Paul’s AME church and brought the house down…or up, in the case of several gosple songs that had the audience on their feet clapping. My personal favorites were the sacred music. Ted and I met in Ohio University singers performing much the same type of music only on a bigger scale, and I miss it. I didn’t realize how much I miss it until I saw my daughter standing on stage, her voice joining with so many others to form this beautiful sound that reached up to heaven and into the heart. I started to cry, wishing I was part of a group like that again and so very glad that she has the chance to be herself. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

Tuesday night, a bare 2 weeks later, the same group put on their Spring Concert. This year they did selections from "Dreamgirls", "Hairspray" and a Motown review. As always, all the music was completely memorized, and I don’t know how they fit all that into their heads, what with finals and AP exams coming up, but they did.

Katie had auditioned and been given a solo in the Hairspray number "Momma, I"m a Big Girl Now." Would she let me hear her practice? No way. Some things never change. But this time, I knew she’d be good. The day of the show she elected to stay after school for extra practice and it’s a good thing she did. At 3 PM, as I was on the phone with her I heard Mrs. Elder, the director come up behind her and say "Kathleen, you know Ginny’s part, right?"
"Hang on Mom" she said to me.
"Hanging" I said and listened. Katie, Alex and Ginny each had short solo parts in the same number. Ginny had just gone home with a raging case of the stomach flu and Mrs. Elder decided to give Ginny’s solo to the most capable person: Katie. How exciting! But it didn’t end there.
"Oh yeah- Ginny also has a solo in "Can’t Stop the Beat". I"ll need you to sing that too, OK?" Sure. No big deal. whatever. Gulp

Ted and I were ready in the sweltering auditorium with both the movie and still cameras. It was a very good show all around, although not all solos were totally great. Apparently it was hard for them to hear themselves over the band- a common problem.

She, on the other hand, blew me away. She was confident, vivacious, on pitch, projected well and the audience loved her. To see her, to hear her up there doing what I used to so love doing but never will get to again…well, it was wonderful. She has her whole life ahead of her, and hers is SO full of possibilities.
People always say to kids, "You can be anything you want to be" but with this child, I think it is true. She really is everything I wanted to be when I was her age. She is artistic, funny and energetic without being bossy and overbearing as I was. She is sensitive like me, but popular and easy to like, and very pretty. (Oh, and she has straight teeth- thank you Dr. Emrick.) It makes me think that for all my flaws, for all the things I’ve failed in or failed to do, I must have done something very right.

I studied music, but never went any farther than the church choir with it. Katie is much too smart and practical to study music in college, but even so, she if she chooses, I bet she could go much farther with it than I ever could have.

As her father observed, she has a real rock ‘n roll voice. She’d have gotten no where in the 70’s in the O.U. School of Music with that voice, but it was a hit at Columbus Alternative High. She even pulled off "Can’t Stop the Beat" which she had never rehearsed with the band other than as part of the chorus. Of course after the show she proceeded to tell us everything little that had gone wrong with the song, but as parents, all we heard onstage was our little baby, who is definitely a big girl now.