Raising Opie and his sister in the most wholesome town in America.
From the category archives:
Here it is! 60 seconds of my 5-year-old humming, making kissy noises, and filming the ceiling of the gym. Oh, and that whitish blob that occasionally appears in the bottom left corner of the screen is me. At :53 my part comes in (dee deedle dee dee deedle dee dee dee!). At 1:01 the video stops before the song does. Some videographer that kid turned out to be.
Yep, I abandon the blog for 10 days and this is what I have to show for it! Enjoy.
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My daughter’s school has a piano keyboarding program. Twice a week for 30 minutes, a heroic teacher instructs an entire class on basic piano skills. Each child plays a full-size electronic keyboard, with headphones so the teacher can listen in. Kids advance at varying speeds depending on their ability, so they are not all playing the same song or even using the same music book at the same time.
We also, space being at a premium, do not have a dedicated music room. So every Tuesday and Thursday morning before school, parent volunteers (I’m one of them) set up 25 stands, keyboards, stools, music stands, and headphones, plus a complicated network of extension cords. And every Tuesday and Thursday morning before lunch, we come back to put it all away. We are a small, but dedicated bunch. We’ve contemplated “Keyboard Roadie” t-shirts and theme songs. We pretty much danced in the streets when we got some new cabinets that allowed us to store the keyboards horizontally instead of vertically.
Of course, twice a year the kids put on a show for their classmates and parents. For the upcoming spring concert, the teacher asked a few of us setter-uppers and taker-downers to perform with our children. And so next Thursday night, I will be plinking and plunking along with the Group 1 kids–that’s one step up from kindergarten, y’all–as their accompanist for two songs (those beloved classics, “Pumpkin Party” and “The Tooth Fairy”).
I am very nervous.
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*Not really, because my phone is lame and my ability to type with my thumbs is even worse. So let’s pretend you’re receiving these in real time. They’re all true!
@mayberrymom 1st grade boy doing kick-ass drum solo. Srsly, he’s GOOD 10:08 am
@mayberrymom Ouch. This kid is finding “Twinkle Twinkle” a bit … challenging. 10:21 am
@mayberrymom Up next: girl with purple crimped hair, gonna play the electric bass 10:34 am
@mayberrymom She rocked it! *devil horns* 10:36 am
@mayberrymom 1st of 3 hula hoop acts (my kid’s is #3. She’s going to pwn them) 10:40 am
@mayberrymom kid in cowboy hat/tight jeans, gonna play the fiddle. 10:44 am
@mayberrymom JOKES! 10:59 am
@mayberrymom Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road? Because he didn’t have the guts! 11:00 am
@mayberrymom 11:13 a.m. already?! 11:13 am
@mayberrymom Yes! My kid can swivel her hips like nobody’s bizness. 11:18 am
@mayberrymom 4 boys in tie-dyed shirts, “Evolution of Dance.” Crowd eating out of their hands. 11:23 am
@mayberrymom Basketball “tricks” w/ Sweet Georgia Brown for soundtrack. White boys can’t jump. 11:29 am
@mayberrymom And… done. 5 mins left in the school day. 11:40 am
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Saturday morning: Chili Peppers ‘n’ pancake prep.
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After my mini-college reunion last month, our host gave all of us a CD which is a recreation of a mix tape he had made way back when. I’ve been listening to it all week and here’s one of my favorite songs from it.
*because it was so very popular last week
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For no reason at all except that I looooove this…
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For a musician‘s daughter, I have done a woeful job of exposing my children to music. We have a few CDs that we play in the car on endless repeat and that is nearly it. Once in awhile we rock out in the laundry room or have an after-dinner dance party, but I confess we are just not a household where tunes are always spinning in the background.
So the new That Baby DVD I recently reviewed (along with its companion, That Baby CD) has been a welcome addition. For the full review, as always, please click over to The Full Mommy. This one could definitely fill a few slots on your holiday shopping list–and there’s a coupon code available too.
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Last month we took the kids to see the touring production of The Lion King. We had bought the tickets nearly a year in advance, knowing that Opie would be barely two years old on the date of the performance. We figured we’d decide whether to take him or not once we had a better read on his behavior, and if we thought he couldn’t hack it, we’d leave him home with a sitter and sell or give away his ticket.
As the date approached, we decided that even though he is two and all boy, he might be trusted to behave during the performance. He loves music and is fascinated by live performance. He loves animals. He had done very well at his first movie matinee in April. The audience at the Lion King would be full of families and kids, and the venue even allowed snacks in the seats. If he did melt down, one of us would suck it up and take him out to the lobby.
We prepped both kids extensively. We listened to the soundtrack constantly (feel free to quiz me on which track is “Hakuna Matata” and which one is “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”) and watched the movie several times. We drilled them on the rules (Opie informs you: “be KYE-it an’ sitinmyseat”). And we packed a few Nuks along with the snacks.
And he did it! (Am I leaving Jo out? It’s just that we never had a moment’s doubt about her, couch potato princess that she is.) For the first few minutes of the first act, he pointed at the exit and told me he wanted to “GO DERE” and “GO HOME,” but he soon settled into my lap with his hands primly folded and watched everything without another word. During the second act, he was a little more chatty, piping up occasionally with questions and comments, but overall, he was an exemplary little audience member.
Since that day, both kids are even more LK-obsessed than ever. We still listen to the soundtrack all day long: In the car. At naptime. At bedtime. During dinner. While playing outside. (You should hear Opie’s operatic rendition of “When I was a young wart-HOG!”) We “read” the souvenir program book just as often. Nearly daily, both kids ask when we are going to see Lion King again.
Which brings me, at long last, to my point. The tour is coming to a city a few hours’ drive from us in the fall. We thought it would be a fun treat to take the kids and spend the weekend. Last night I investigated ticketing options–until I came to this roadblock: “Patrons must be age four or over. No one under age four will be admitted.”
And in an instant the whole trip was off. Look, I totally understand that they don’t want screaming babies or disruptive toddlers to ruin the paying customers’s experience. But I’d like to be able to decide for myself whether my kid’s attendance is appropriate. I am, after all, the one who is shelling out $75 for his ticket. Or not, as the case may be is. I’m very disappointed that our whole family has to miss out because of this stupid rule. And I’m really angry at the clueless parents whose kids’ behavior must have prompted it. If they’d had the good sense to control their offspring in public–or remove them from the scene if necessary–my children wouldn’t have to miss out.
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I’m noticing a theme here. It’s a little like freshman year in college. Aside from their nonstop eating and their habit of strewing their belongings far and wide and deep, my children are studying the following subjects:
1. Music of the 20th Century
Both love listening to and playing music. So I thought it would be fun to take them to a free concert at our library a few Sundays ago.
(I’ll pause now for you to laugh at my idealism.)
Yes, I thought that I could scoop up my almost 2-year-old son literally seconds after his nap ended, toss him in the car with his almost 5-year-old sister who only thinks she doesn’t need a nap, and hustle them into a large room crowded with strangers where they would be expected to sit quietly and listen to more than an hour’s worth of jazz.
The band was billed as a “gypsy swing” ensemble so I guess I was picturing singing, dancing, trumpets, saxophones — all kinds of both ear and eye candy (they LOVE this boogie-woogie dance video). In reality, it was two guitars and an upright bass. And the musicians were excellent. It’s just that for two preschoolers, the excitement of watching and listening to them faded after about 10 minutes (not so coincidentally, about as long as it took for them to consume the cookies they grabbed from the refreshment table on the way in).
Since we arrived at the last minute, we were sitting on the far side of the room away from the door (and the cookies!). There was no way out unless we walked directly in front of the band, in the 3-foot aisle between them and the first row of seats. Instead we made our way to the corner, alongside the band were the kids could see a little better and also spread out, stand up if they liked, even dance a bit.
The drawbacks? Also located in the same place were a baby stroller filled with enticing items (juice boxes, toys, blankets) belonging to another family; a wheeled walker delicately leaning against the wall, ready to topple over at the slightest touch from an inquisitive toddler; and the emergency exit, armed with ear-piercing alarm. Oh, and the band’s amps, speakers, and power cords. Needless to say, I spent most of my time chasing Opie away from danger zones and shushing him when he said “Home! Jacket! Car! Wan’ go home!” At least Jo was pretty happy to lounge on the floor and listen quietly, especially once she was promised more cookies on the way out.
2. Art History
When we went to see my parents, we decided to visit an art museum. (Again, I pause.) The exhibit was called “Monet in Normandy,” so in the car on the way there I talked to Jo about what we would see. I was hoping to drum up some excitement.
I started giving her what I thought was an age-appropriate lesson in Monet and Impressionism. I told her that we would see lots of pictures of flowers and beaches and places outside. I told her this painter loved painting outdoors and that he was always trying to notice different colors, and how the color of something (like a flower or the ocean) could change depending on whether it was morning or afternoon, sunny or cloudy. I told her how he would line up a series of canvasses and work at them for a few minutes at a time, switching as the light around him changed.
I told her how he used a lot of small little brushmarks to create his pictures, and how if we looked at them from far away we would see a scene that we could recognize, but if we got up close we would only see little dots. Here she jumped in. “I know about those dots! It’s called pointillism!”
Good grief! Okay, so a real art historian would say that Pointillism isn’t the same as Impressionism (it came later) but still, I was… impressed. Turns out she learned it from TV. Naturally.
Meanwhile, Opie had absorbed some of the excitement and chirped, “I see paintings! I go museum see paintings! I say ‘HI paintings!’”At the exhibit itself, results were mixed. Both kids did pretty well at walking through the galleries (or at switching from stroller to floor to Mommy to Daddy, repeat) and looking at the paintings, but I was glad that the museum wasn’t yet crowded. I later figured out why Jo seemed a little disappointed. Turns out she was hoping to see the Mona Lisa! Apparently the episode of Blue’s Room in which Blue and company visit a museum taught her about “masterpieces,” and she was on the lookout for one.
Our apologies to M. Monet, but apparently his water lilies didn’t qualify.
3. Literary Criticism
Jo and her friend H. are playing in a tent.
H: Come into the tent, Jo! It’s our club!
J: Yeah! Our book club!
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