Hollywood Called. I answered.

I became a stage mother...for about an hour. A casting call was sent out through a Bay Area Down syndrome parent support group for a boy with Ds between the ages of 3 and 6 to have a role in a short film. Even better, they said, if said child had a sibling under the age of 10. Check and check. I sent the filmmakers a picture of my two kids and with in a couple of weeks, got a call back for an audition.

The audition went something like this: We show up. Matthew immediately gets distracted by the train table, while Isabella gets lost in a book. The filmmakers gather us into a room with a few props, including chairs and more toys and books. The director is so nice, and so accomodating, but reveals a few minutes into the audition that she has never worked with young children and does not have any children herself.  She tries, desperately to get my children to sit in two chairs and pretend they are on a road trip, while playing with a "doll" (technically a stuffed Llama, wrapped in a blanket). It doesn't happen. Matthew gets up from his chair and dances and spins around to music he hears. Isabella is constantly distracted by the books surrounding her--so much so that she doesn't even hear the director when she is talking to her.

That's when my inner stage mother becomes unleashed. I want to scream at my children, "ACT! ACT! You love riding in cars! Pretend you like to play with stuffed llamas wrapped in a blankets!"

I want to scream at the director, "Eliminate the distractions, woman! Give them ONE prop!"

But instead I bite my tongue--hard--for 20 painstaking minutes, while my kids perform their own circus show.

The audition ends. My dreams of buying a mansion from my children's royalties, shatter. I suppose I will have to pursue other ways of creating my legacy, and I suppose my Hollywood-reject children will go on being authentic, adorable, playful, train-loving, bookworms.

I suppose I can handle that.