This is for my dad

My dad has found my blog at long last. He still doesn’t even have an email address, but he has found my blog. The last time he phoned me he started in, “You haven’t put up a picture of the Boy in his suit yet. I thought you said you would put one up for me.” Sheesh, one week they don’t even realize you have a blog, the next, they are demanding specific content. 🙂

Once there was a boy who didn’t care what he wore. He was always in cut offs and dirty pants and ran around shirtless and barefoot, playing around in the grass. Then his mother made him dress up for a wedding once. And she put on him a little blue vest that his uncle wore to her wedding when he was a little Boy. He called it his “Wedding clothes” and wore it without a shirt and with cutoffs and ran around blasting people.

Perhaps it was the advent of sisters and their pretty clothes, but gradually the Boy started taking an interest in what he wore. One day he appeared outside his bedroom blue vest on underneath a long sleeved dress shirt. “I’m pretending it’s a suit jacket” he explained. “Because, you know, sometimes grownup men wear a suit jacket over their vest like this.”

A few weeks later he was heard lamenting, “Mommy, I wish I had a suit jacket.”

Mommy could hardly believe her ears and figured that she had better take advantage of this phenomenon before it disappeared. The Boy’s grandpa heard the story and wanted to be the benefactor. So the birthday money from Grandpa was used to buy the black pinstripe suit from Walmart, on clearance of course, and a shirt, tie and shoes.

The boy set forth proudly in his news duds to a Christmas Eve party where he planned to regal the guests with his first ever live solo. Except, there were many people, and he didn’t know all of them, and so at the last minute he chose not to do it. Stage fright or not, he looked good.

The next morning was Christmas and he awoke an once again put on his suit for, “I know it’s Jesus’s birthday mommy so I wanted to wear it for that.”

He has been very careful not to play in it like in his other clothes and keeps it clean and neat. He hangs it up when he takes it off and has even stopped wiping his face on his shoulder or his shirt while wearing it.

He next wore it to Beema’s house for a family dinner and planned to sing again for the great grandparents. But there were still too many people. Eventually he insisted that all who were to listen hide in the school room so no one else would look, and there, holding mommy’s hand, he finally overcame his stage fright enough to sing. But the video of that is dim, and sideways.

However, as reluctant as he has proved to sing in front of actual real live people, he was thrilled at the idea of doing it on a video for grandpa and everyone else to see.

So here, without further ado, is the Boy, in his suit, singing for his grandpa to see.

The Boy Sings from Carrien Leith on Vimeo.

And of course I can’t just video him and not have the other want to join in. SO here is some more singing from everyone else, and some silliness.

Everybody from Carrien Leith on Vimeo.