Despite all of this, I had not yet seen the movie. Christi impressed upon me the fact that it was very important to Lexi that I watch it with her. When I demurred, Christi impressed upon me the fact that my future happiness in my marital relationship was largely dependent on my watching it with Lexi. I saw the light. So one Sunday afternoon, Christi, Lexi, Sophi and I cuddled in our bed to watch Into the Woods. It was a painful experience. While watching Captain Kirk belt out 'Agony' was a bit of a fanboy fantasy, and while the songwriting was exceptional, the movie itself had a warped storyline and was waaaay too long. At the point in the movie where it looks like everyone is going to live happily ever after and I would be able to turn off the TV (and I was dozing off already), Christi turned to me and said, "that's the end of Act I." I totally thought she was joking, and once I realized it was true, I began to understand the true meaning of 'Agony!' [Side note: after finding the link to 'Agony' above, I have been playing the song while working on this post. Sure enough, like moths to a flame, there are now two darling little girls in my office ;)]
Of course I didn't let Lex and Soph know my true feelings. I talked about how fun the music was and how great the various characters were. Continuing with their love of this musical, these two little angels decided to put on their own production. On my way home from work the next evening I got a call from Christi. "Hurry back! Lexi and Sophi are putting on a production of Into the Woods for us and can't wait for you to get here." Barely able to contain my joy, I put the pedal to the medal and arrived just in time for curtain call. Jessica was invited to be the narrator, Sophi was Rapunzel and Lexi was every other role (except milky white, the cow, who was played by Molly). In the pictures below, notice Lexi's red cape and Sophi's Rapunzel hair (some kind of nylon stocking with a belt to extend it). Very clever costumes with no help from mom and dad.
And so their production began. We began to video. My attention span is not tremendously long. 5 minutes. 8 minutes. 12 minutes. 15 minutes. Finally I realized the truth. Having seen the movie just the day before, I was very familiar with the storyline, dialogue and songs. Suddenly I knew. I turned to Christi and said, "They are going to do the ENTIRE movie! Line for line!!!" Fortunately, despite her attention span being decidedly more 'kid-prodution-friendly' than mine, Christi knew it just wouldn't work for us to watch a full 2.5 hour musical that particular evening. She asked the girls to do two more of their favorite parts and then it would be time for dinner.
I love our girls! They did a fantastic job. I'm embedding a video below. It's 15 minutes long, so just skip around to a couple of scenes to see a bit of their creativity. Enjoy!
-Jer
