Troy and I have been working side by side, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for a week now directing the pre-K extravaganza and New School tradition that is The Circus Play. There have been highs; there have been lows. The other day I knelt down on the lobby floor with all of the Super Strong Kids so that we could practice the lyrics of their song before entering the theatre. A little tiny boy about the size of my arm made a terrible face and backed away from me. I kept singing, though my confidence was fading fast. He then began gasping for air, coughing as if he might die, and shouted: “SHE JUST BLEW HER BAD BREATH ALL OVER ME!” Minutes later another little boy told me I was Mr. Troy’s mommy. I explained that I was actually Mr. Troy’s WIFE (which we’ve been over many times). He said, “You will BECOME Mr. Troy’s mommy.” I insisted that I would NEVER be Mr. Troy’s mommy, but that I was actually a mommy to Mr. Troy’s SON, which sounded scandalous and was met with skeptical faces. Moments after that another boy hugged me tightly and announced, “You smell SO good!” Still, as soon as I had a free minute I grabbed five Lifesavers and vowed never to have coffee right before rehearsal.

Sometimes in the evenings we recover from our prekindergarten trauma by watching something on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon, and we’ve discovered that some of our favorite shows are somewhat Huck friendly, especially if we let him “multi-task,” which means play Minecraft on the laptop and only half-pay attention to the TV. This was particularly helpful during the long Christmas break with no bed time in sight for our 12 year old who always likes to be in the same room with us. We were pretty happy to discover that our beloved Tig Notaro’s show One Mississippi was perfect for the three of us, until it wasn’t. I may forever suffer post-traumatic stress from the moment when everything went wrong very quickly and without warning. I began shouting back and forth in an alarming voice: “DON’T LOOK AT THE TV! TURN THE TV OFF! DON’T LOOK AT THE TV! TURN THE TV OFF!” Troy panicked and stood in front of our enormous TV that we’d just inherited from a friend, making us regret the decision for a minute there. Huck stared intensely at his little screen, wondering what he was missing but having a vague idea due to the incredible sound system on the new TV. When finally Troy remembered how to turn it completely off, I put my head into my hands and hyperventilated for a while. Troy would later say something like, “It’s pretty funny that Huck’s first encounter with a TV sex scene involved a double mastectomy, CGI boobs and his mother screaming.” Thank God for Black-ish.

This week our Circus Play will come and go, and by the weekend we’ll have moved on to new adventures with new problems and new to-do lists. I just read Thornton Wilder’s Our Town with my 7th and 8th grade drama students, kids old enough to never mention my bad breath but not quite old enough to truly appreciate a great play or watch Tig Notaro. Even still, we had a good conversation about one of Emily’s final lines: “Oh earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.” We decided the play wanted us to try and appreciate the little things while we can.

Ok, then.