The Rehearsal

Who is it?

Oh, hi!

Hi. I'm here to see the doctor.

I'm Dr. Farts. Come and have a seat.

Put your head down. You're ruining my doctor.

Dr. Fart, I'm really sick.

Do you think you could help me?

Yes, I can help you with my farts.

With your farts? How does that work?

It will make you still alive.

Oh, that makes sense.

The farts aren't working. I still feel sick.

Do you think it's cancer?

Maybe... Yeah.

So, what should I do?

Eat my poo. It will make you feel better.

- Your poo? - Yeah.

- You want me to eat your poo? - Yeah, eat the poo!

Eat it!

It's poo.

Finish it. Eat all.

- Okay. - It's crunchy.

Wow! I think I'm cured.

He always eats poo.

That's it.

- What do you think? - Yeah.

I think that was pretty disgusting.

- It was his concept. - Was it?

- Yeah. - Oh, really?

- You don't believe me? - No.

All right. Where is Adam?

Is he under this chair?

No.

Is he under this chair?

- There he is. There he is. - No, no.

Ever since I turned Adam back into a six-year-old

I was determined to take my duties as a father seriously.

I realized that neither me nor Angela

would get anything out of this rehearsal

unless we were both fully committed to it.

Good, good.

So, I decided there would be no other rehearsals besides this one.

- I win. - What? Oh.

- You win? - Yes!

I was all in on my family.

"The Holy Spirit came down from Heaven in the form of a dove

and landed on Jesus. Then God said, 'This is My Son.'"

Back when I first joined the family

Angela had expressed strong opinions about Adam's education.

I'm considering a faith-based home-schooling curriculum.

- What do you think? - Yeah, sounds good. I...

If we had, you know, like a Monday through Friday...

I was raised Jewish, and I still do all the holidays and stuff.

But because Angela was so passionate about Christianity

I thought I'd be open to trying it her way.

"And a hundred million stood to attend Him.

His clothing was white as snow.

His hair was like the whitest wool."

Yeah!

But when Adam was three

my parents drove down to visit from Vancouver, Canada.

So, I invited them over for a picnic.

So, we're trying to raise him together

- and doing our best so far. - Okay.

- Experiencing the challenges. - Okay.

I mean, there's definitely a lot I don't know.

And I feel like she's been very generous with...

Like, she's very knowledgeable.

Yes, I feel like I get clarity and perspective

just from my relationship with God

and learning about God, and what His Word says.

- What was the book you suggested? - John 1:1.

- So, certain things... - John 1:1.

- Romans 8. - Certain things...

- Sorry? - Romans 8.

Romans 8.

And after the meal, they cornered me.

I didn't realize that you were raising the kid with her.

- Yeah, I am. - Okay.

I mean, I kind of came into it after her.

- So, you know, we're... - Yeah. Well, I think that...

You know, there's nothing wrong

with talking about the things that you've grown up with

the traditions you've grown up

and the values that you've learned, also. You know?

At the time, I didn't really understand

why my parents seemed to care

how I raised a fake child with a fake partner.

But it's kind of her. She's really into the...

this stuff, you know, and I don't wanna overstep her.

So, sometimes you feel like it's just easier to go along with things

rather than, you know, deal with the tension.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

But my mom's tone made me realize they had seen this before.

My relationship with Angela was starting to parallel

real relationships I had had in the past.

Can you go downstairs and make sure

the cookies are taken out of the oven?

- Yes. - Thanks.

- Right now? - Yeah.

- Okay. - Make sure to use oven mitt.

I have a tendency to let my partner take the reins

and make the decisions as a way of avoiding conflict.

- Two more minutes. - Two Okay.

And by not asking Angela to raise Adam with Judaism too

I was falling into my old habits.

We love you, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

But this could be an opportunity to change those habits

to practice getting what I wanted without it turning into a fight.

So, I decided to wait until wintertime

because I thought discussing holiday plans

would be a good way to ease into the conversation.

But it turns out winter is very expensive to maintain.

So, I knew I couldn't put it off much longer.

I guess, since it's winter...

should we talk about our holiday plans at all?

Yeah. Christmas is really important to me

and there's a lot I want to do so, we should get started planning.

Sooner rather than later.

Yeah. And, I was just wondering if, maybe we should...

or how you'd feel about incorporating some Judaism

into Adam's life too.

Okay.

I had flown out one of my Fielder Method graduates

to help me better understand this woman I was living with

and navigate this sensitive conversation.

Okay, I just feel like this whole experience

was supposed to be about me

and now, all of a sudden, it feels like it's becoming about you.

But in a real relationship

your partner might have different feelings than you, right?

Yeah, but I know that they'd be Christian.

But people change their minds all the time, right?

Were you always Christian?

Exactly!

There could be no flaws in my approach.

So, I constructed an exact replica of our entire home

to get every detail right.

- Hello. Hi, there. - So, come on in. This is Angela.

- Hi. How are you? - This is Adam.

Hi, Adam.

I had the actress pose as a new nanny I had hired.

So, she'd be able to secretly observe Angela

and learn everything about her primary.

Nathan and I are not...

- We were never... - Okay.

These are the teas she uses.

This is her handwriting you see?

Do you find that it's been healthy for you here?

Making my rehearsal as true as life.

Okay, well, now I feel like

you're just interested in winning an argument

and not actually having a conversation with me. So...

No, no. That' absurd. No... This could be fun.

Hey, there's a lot of couples that do different religions

in a relationship. It's very common.

Okay. Sometimes, when you set your mind on something.

It feels like you've tunnel vision.

And then I don't feel I have the space to object.

We're just... We're doing... This is where... We're just talking.

Yeah, you're saying that we're talking

but this is your project.

It's not like I really have a say.

I mean, you...

Did you know that the term "fragrance"

can contain over a thousand... a thousand manmade chemicals?

- Oh, really? - It's really, you know.

Forever chemicals, but, yeah.

Sometimes, I actually boil, boil a pot of like cloves

to, like, make the house smell good.

Cloves?

I thought you said clothes.

Smell of fresh clothes.

So, obviously, it's winter and the holidays are coming up

and, you know, it's like Christmas time.

And as someone who is a Jew and...

you know, could there be a path to doing Hanukkah too.

And maybe even beyond that. You know?

Raising Adam with Jewish... Judaism too.

- As a faith? - As a faith, yeah.

I'm pretty much like a "no" on the faith part 'cause...

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So...

I'm not trying to get you to compromise your beliefs.

I'm just... All I'm doing is saying, well, is there...

Can I get a little bit too?

And then we do, we do it all, all together.

We do both, you know, however we need to.

I, unfortunately, cannot participate in Judaism.

Because Judaism denies that Christ came and died for us.

- So, I can't deny that. - Well...

And I wouldn't raise a child to deny that

'cause it's the truth.

I wanted everything to stay as calm as possible.

Why don't we talk about something else?

Oh, okay.

What's your favorite movie?

I love the movie Apocalypto.

- Have you seen it? - Yeah.