Last week I submitted the referral for Jack’s wish to the Make A Wish program. If you are living in a hole (one with internet access?) and are unaware of this program, it’s a charitable organization that grants wishes to seriously ill children. From what I understand, most of these kids want to go to Disneyland. Jack, being Jack and ever-unique, wants something very different.

At first, Jack said he wanted to act in a movie as Charlie (of Willy Wonka fame). I thought that was pretty interesting. His dad suggested meeting a football player, which Jack had absolutely no interest in. It was a few weeks later when he settled on wanting to meet Lady Gaga and become one of her “Little Monsters.”

I’m not sure what exactly first drew Jack to Lady Gaga. There were a few songs on the radio and he immediately loved them and protested if I tried to change the station. Then he began requesting that I play Lady Gaga songs every time we got in the car. That led to asking to see her pictures (he declares that people are beautiful based upon their voices on the radio) and then a whole new level of fascination developed. Once he learned that she dresses up in crazy outfits (he thought the meat dress was hilarious), his artistic little heart was completely smitten. After all, Jack has dressed up as one thing or another – or just pretended to be some magical monster or alien – just about every day of his life. In fact his daycare provider quickly learned not to call him “Jack” upon drop off, and instead asked who or what he was that day.

So, one evening he and I were sitting at home hanging out. Jack was dressed as a bat and we were discussing his wish in between his eating everything in sight (he was on the steroid at the time). I figured I’d show him one of Lady Gaga’s music videos. Well, once he saw one, he wanted to watch them all! I sifted through the videos and picked the most kid-friendly ones (this does NOT include Paparazzi!). After watching a half dozen of her videos, Jack decided he needed to make a video, as well, to go along with his wish!

Now, Jack is not very athletic. He was never the kid that swayed his diapered booty to music and he does not sing – nor does he allow most people to sing in his presence. Partially because he is noise-sensitive and partially because he gets incredibly embarrassed by grandiose displays. Up until this evening, I’d only heard him humming (but I wasn’t allowed to acknowledge it) and the only dancing he’d done was in my arms as a baby. Not to mention, he had already begun chemo and was generally low energy, sore, and pretty blah.

I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I turned on some Lady Gaga music and found myself recording this low-quality video (the darkness is one of many reasons we left our apartment in the city) of a dance routine Jack came up with on the spot to go with his Make a Wish application:

We should hear back this week from the Make a Wish Foundation about when they’ll be out to interview Jack regarding his “one true wish.” I can’t wait!