The Sweetest Thing To Happen To Us At The Charlie & Lola Best Bestest Play…

Written with permission from the rockstars’ friends’ mum…

The Sweetest Thing To Happen To Us At The Charlie & Lola Best Bestest Play. Or, Make Magic Happen.

Charlie & Lola identifiers – like so many siblings out there

We were seated here…

Our friends were up here… Grainy pic because it’s zoomed in quite a bit…

(Rockstar had a schoolmate seated quite a few rows up from us this afternoon, in a completely packed auditorium.)

There is a reason we love Charlie & Lola so – despite the Miss’ comment that Lola is blonde and she is not (she also searches out Lego Friends figures with straight black hair haha), the rockstars greatly identify with and draw inspiration from older brother Charlie’s exasperations at his younger sister’s antics….. while coming up with various at times devious means of encouraging Lola at everything from school sports to responsibility to trying new things. It’s a pretty nice show particularly for siblings.

We’re at the scene where Magician’s Assistant Charlie is cheering Disheartened Magician Lola up and they turn to tell the kids in the audience they can all do magic, when tissue paper hearts start raining down from the ceiling.

Rockstar snatches the only paper heart drifting near him right out of the air, whooping at his good fortune, considering we are not seated under the paper shower, but………………… the Miss doesn’t get one. Not even close. She doesn’t make a scene but, unusually quiet, she looks at Rockstar’s scrap of paper wistfully. Now, when your three year old badly wants something she can’t have and particularly doesn’t throw a hissy fit about it is when you will doubly yearn for her to have it. 

The intermission bell is a starter’s gun; determinedly I pull the Miss outside with me to look for an Official Charlie & Lola Souvenir, even as I despair of finding a suitable replacement. One does not simply buy a little paper heart floating from the ceiling during a much-anticipated play by your son and daughter’s favourite characters. Every parent who has ever had a child yearn with all their little heart (for all of 5 minutes :D) after something unattainable knows this feeling, and equally, the futility of it: You Cannot Buy Magic. You Can Only Strive To Make It Happen. 

Seated a good third of the auditorium away, my mum friend and her daughter join us outside. When we look back, we discover Rockstar’s friend has found him so quickly Rockstar is still standing next to his seat, and so we leave the boys already deep in conversation.

Newly laden with Charlie & Lola water tumblers, a free-with-purchase poster and still feeling the lack of a paper heart, The Miss and I return to our seats – whereupon Rockstar’s friend holds out 3 paper hearts to the Miss. He had been seated much closer to the shower of hearts.

“What colour do you want? I think pink is nice.” For once, the Miss has nothing to add as she obediently selects the pink one.

And then there was light

Startled, I ask Rockstar, “Did you tell him the Miss didn’t get one?”

“No, when he came down to our seats he was already holding them.” 

Rockstar’s friend is in SEN (Special Education Needs), and with the school’s Culture of Inclusion, is one of the group of SEN kids Rockstar has had the privilege of interacting with, same as everyone else in his class, that I know of. (Another ESF parent had once remarked that life and the “real” world was not exactly made up of 16 perfectly selected little kids doing say, a standardised test together. Different personalities and abilities greatly broadened and widened the depth of experience and learning opportunity our children would be exposed to, together. Not to say that doesn’t come with anxieties, but earlier – and with a lot of help – rather than later…)

Tell me that wasn’t magic

This evening he’s also the one who thought to bring the Miss a little magic. It is magic only he (and not say, me 😛 ) could’ve brought.

The Miss spends the rest of the play regularly looking back up at the rows and rows of seats behind us waiting for when she can give Rockstar’s classmate her Charlie & Lola free poster (which I had been holding and too flabbergasted – after which I was excitedly narrating to the other mum so many rows up – to tell her earlier).

After watching us frolic around happily in front of the stall, the guy asks, “Would they like another free poster?” Which is how both rockstars’ friends eventually get one each

It’s a nice little metaphor to start the week with: At some time or other, we all find ourselves encountering a shower of paper hearts. We could see more scraps to be cleaned up later, or we could pick one up and make magic happen for a 3-year old. 

Magic begins with picking up that piece of paper.  

The Ends