<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  By the time the whole cast was giggling through their lines, I felt like I&amp;#039;d been invited into a secret society of children, like The Lost Boys, only with girls, too, and adult supervision. My sons were appearing in a church production of &amp;quot;Malice in the Palace: The Story of Esther.&amp;quot; And Esther, played by a local eighth grader, had started the giggling. The audience, filled with parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, also began giggling, as though we&amp;#039;d been let in on a joke that until then, only the kids on stage had known. And it made me wish I, too, was a kid. This was my sons&amp;#039; second year at drama camp, which involved a week of learning lines, singing songs and painting sets, culminating in a Saturday night production of a play based on a story from the Bible. Run by the children&amp;#039;s youth minister at a local church, this year&amp;#039;s show had more kids in it than last summer, as word had gotten around during the school year that drama camp was a whole lotta fun. Also, it&amp;#039;s one of the few places where you can keep your kids busy in August for not much money. My kids had several parts each: Captain of the Guard, King&amp;#039;s Advisor, Haman&amp;#039;s Friends and People of Israel. All week long, they memorized lines and sang songs around the house and in my car, where they practiced with their buddies, Drew and Mike, who had been cast in similar parts. As I listened to them work on their lines, brown bag lunches in their laps and flip flops dangling from their feet, I wished I could be 10 again, if only for that week. I listened in as they talked about who couldn&amp;#039;t remember their lines and who had a crush on whom. They compared notes on their costumes, deciding that they weren&amp;#039;t wearing dresses, but &amp;quot;tough guy skirts.&amp;quot; You know, because of the spears they got to carry. When I showed up two hours early one afternoon, having misread the information about the dress rehearsal, I got a sneak peek of one of the musical numbers and the set production before the youth minister shooed me away. For a moment, I longed to be covered in paint, scarf pinned around my head, learning the words to &amp;quot;It Would Take a Miracle.&amp;quot; But it wasn&amp;#039;t for me. It was for my kids, as it should be. The night of the production, my family and I read the cast notes and dedications tacked to the wall near our seats. While most of the kids thanked their parents, my 11-year-old thanked no one, mentioning he starred in last year&amp;#039;s show and that he likes to play the piano. On my nine-year-old&amp;#039;s notes, it read: &amp;quot;He would like to thank Mike.&amp;quot; So, thank you Mike, and all the kids from &amp;quot;Malice in the Palace.&amp;quot; You gave me hope that there are still places where kids can simply be kids and adults aren&amp;#039;t allowed. And that&amp;#039;s something to giggle about "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a20625/ah-to-be-10-again/?src=shelter_footer>