My funeral music

I am not a fan of religious music; never have been. I don't know why.
I'm one of those people who stands and stares while other people sing at church.

I'm more interested in finding the spirit in the secular. It's there; I firmly believe that.

After writing about what I would want to say in my eulogy, I thought it might be nice to think about meaningful songs. Songs that sum up my beliefs about life and love.

Play these at my funeral.


Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips

Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley

Have I Told You Lately by Van Morrison

Glorious by Macklemore

We've got all the misheard lyrics

My kids probably have some talents, but the one I appreciate most is their ability to totally botch song lyrics.

I keep a journal for each kid of cute/funny things they've said or done over the years, dating back to birth, and I think 90 percent of the entries in the past five years are misheard and mis-sung lyrics.

The king of the mis-sung lyrics is G.

He is heavy right now into Queen, which has produced this:

Rushot!
Pushing down on me,
Pushing down on you,
I said don't stop.

We won't even discuss what Rushot is.
At first, we thought he was singing Russia, which might have actually made sense.
And I guess if you don't know what Rushot is (and we don't) you might actually want it pushing down on you and say "don't stop" when someone is pushing it on you.

G's misheard lyrics dates back many years.

A few years ago, before Papaw died, we visited his sisters in the country.
When we stopped for lunch, we heard Beyonce's All the Single Ladies.
Later, when we returned to the car, G started singing, "I'm a cigarette. I'm a cigarette."

As G gets into more and more music, I'm certain I'll have many more entries into his book.
Music lyrics and their bastardizations have become a bit of a tradition and source of wonderful memories for our family. 

How my music is like my vacations

Life is too short to go to the same places over and over again on vacation. 

Even when I have moments of thinking it would be nice (and less stressful) to return to the same vacation spot every few years, I just can't do it. 

It doesn't feel right.

That same feeling describes my musical taste.

I do not listen to any music now that I listened to when I was 35, and certainly not when I was 25, and absolutely not what I listened to at 15.

Sure, I'll have an occasion when I listen to a particular song or maybe even a whole album, but I listen once and then I move along to discovering new things. 

(There were some lost years when all I listened to were Disney soundtracks and The Wiggles because of kids.)

If I had to create a timeline of my lifetime musical interests by musical artist/band in order, it might look like this:

Andy Gibb

Rick Springfield

Duran Duran

--

--

--(ok, this particular phase lasted a LONG time)

Bon Jovi / Guns & Roses / various hair bands

Al B Sure / New Edition / Public Enemy / Big Daddy Kane / various other rappers

Pearl Jam / Tori Amos / Liz Phair / PJ Harvey

Jeff Buckley

--

--

--(this phase lasted a long time, too)

David Gray
The Lost Years (Disney, Wiggles, Doodlebops, Dora the Explorer)
_
_
_
The Flaming Lips
The Black Keys
Bruno Mars
Fitz and the Tantrums

At the present time, I'm listening to Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco.

I remember as a kid loving Duran Duran; it was a complete obsession. And they never came to my city. Later, when I was considerably older, they did come to my city, and the idea that I would pay money to see them in concert by that time was laughable.

Even though I loved Pearl Jam in college and saw them in concert in college, I would not pay to see them now. That ship has sailed.

This summer, I will finally get to see The Flaming Lips in concert. That is a bucket list item.
The one performer I never got to see is Jeff Buckley, which is a shame.

There are some artists I've seen a couple times, but after two concerts, I'm sorta done.

Sometimes I wonder what I will listen to when I'm in my 70s or 80s.
Will I be listening to entirely new things, or will I revert to the "oldies?"

If the first 45 years of my life are any indication, I'll be finding new musicians and bands and, perhaps, asking my grandkids if Nana can go with them to see their favorite bands in concert.

Update: the app is in / auto correct and voice / The Mamas and Papas / John Green / immigration

The app is in

I took N's high school application to the school on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, when I was trying to get her out the door early so I could get to my subbing job, I threatened to go back over to the high school and ask for it back because I am tired as hell of driving her butt to school, and the idea of doing this for another four years makes me want to cry.

So now we wait.

Autocorrect and voice

I both love and hate autocorrect.
I hate typing on my phone, so anything that reduces fingers pressing on buttons is great.
Except when the phone thinks it knows more than me, which it doesn't.
At least not in the way of spelling most words.
And don't even get me started on voice dictation.
Yesterday I ran into an accident on Finchley (a street near the school), so I dictated a text to send to N. Instead of Finchley, it said something about "sensually."
I cannot send my teenager a text about anything sensually.
I hate technology, especially in my car.

The Mamas and the Papas

Sometimes I remember things that I've forgotten.
But I don't mean the important stuff, like where I put the safe deposit box key which I hid somewhere in the house.
I remember stuff like how I read Michelle Phillips' autobiography about 60 times when I was a kid, which then led me to listen to The Mamas and the Papas music.
Sometimes I think that seems like a pretty weird thing for a kid to do. Read a book like 60 times, but I did. I read Judy Blume books like that too. Over and over and over.
Everytime I ate a snack, I'd sit down with one of my most read books and just open it anywhere, picking up wherever, because I'd read it so many times it didn't matter where I started. I knew everything by heart.

John Green

Speaking of books, I'm both liking and disliking Green's latest book, Turtles All the Way Down. It resonates with me because the main character has OCD, and the way her thoughts spiral is completely accurate. I like her confusion as to who is the captain of her ship, which is language I've heard Green himself use in interviews. We all like to think we're the captains, but the brain is a wacky thing, and we really aren't.

I've been looking at school and church and different places where people congregate as versions of pods of bacteria. Humans do the same things as bacteria---live, eat, produce waste, reproduce and try to survive. This book has made me consider just how much we are not the higher/greater species. We aren't nearly as adaptable as bacteria.

Immigration

I listened to this interview today, and I realized, once again, that even though I think of myself as being pretty left-leaning, I don't disagree with this senator's proposal about not giving DACA residents automatic citizenship. I'm a person who tends to be a rule-follower, who tends to go about things the "right" way. I'm the type of person who pays attention to the flight attendant every time I get on a plane when they go over the safety rules. Yes, I'm that person on the plane who rolls my eyes at the people who don't pay attention and will be the first ones to f*ck everything up when a crisis ensues because they don't know what to do because they didn't pay attention.

I mean, I work in middle schools. I see how this goes down every.day.

And if I was going to think about this scenario in a grocery store, then I would have to admit that I get pissed off at the people who don't read and follow the 15 Items or Less sign. The people who drop 35 items on the conveyor belt. The people who don't do things the "right" way, the way that everyone else who has groceries is supposed to follow. And maybe it is a teenager, who watched his or her parents drop 35 items on the conveyor belt and so that is all he or she knows. I can understand it, but I would still get pissed off if I (and when I), in the grocery store, followed the instructions to the letter.

I can understand why someone who follows the "right" process for citizenship would be miffed by the prospect of people who came illegally just getting a pass.

And I know that this doesn't account for the fact that it takes so long to get citizenship (which maybe is too long), and maybe costs a ton of money (I don't know because I've never actually researched it, and maybe those people came because they were desperate and in dire straight (which makes me think of Jesus and do unto others and then things get super complicated in my heart), and maybe those things need to be addressed.

What I'm saying is that I can see both sides of the coin.

Trying to raise adults

I am nearly finished reading a book that has been on my radar for a while: How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott-Haims.

It has made me look at what we (D and I) are doing to raise our kids.
I saw "we," but the truth is that I am, in most ways, the captain of this child-rearing ship.
Partly, this responsibility lands on me because I am more of a control freak than D.
Also, he hates conflict more than anything, and conflict is part of raising children.
Conflict comes from saying to your children, "No, you cannot do whatever you want" or "No, I'm not giving you whatever you want."
Conflict may also come in the very real need for children to assert independence from their parents: "No, I do not believe whatever it is you believe."
Partly, the fact that I was a stay-at-home mom for many years means I had the bulk of child-rearing decisions and input. He deferred to me then and still does.
Also, I think he thinks I know stuff about kids because of teaching.

One of my great fears is that I will die before our kids are grown, and D will be left to parent alone. I worry that his desire to avoid conflict would mean he does more for our children than he should just to avoid listening to them whine, bitch, and moan.
I don't mind conflict, and I especially don't mind conflict when I am the mom and the risk of me not engaging in conflict is having children who grow up thinking they can walk over others, do whatever they want, not work hard, and so on.

When I was a kid, I always had a distinct feeling that my parents didn't like me very much.
I now realize that my parents loved me very much but did not indulge me. They didn't think I was all that and a bag of chips to the point where I knew they thought I was all that and a bag of chips.

I seem to have that same ability to know that my kids are pretty great but keep it under wraps fairly well. My kids probably sometimes think I think they are "meh."
I hate it when my kids are disappointed, but I do not ask for special favors or try to pull strings or anything like that.

Based on this book, I think we're mostly doing ok with our kids.
Not perfect, but we're trying to teach them responsibility and empathy.
We're not trying to make everything wonderful all the time, to remove any obstacles in their way.  We are trying to help them become resilient and be able to apply grit to their lives.

I have been wondering whether I'm completely screwing up M lately because of piano class.

He has been in this class for 4 years; G has been in it with us for 3 years.
It is an amazing program to help children learn to read music, play piano, play recorder and play a little guitar. (It has helped me learn all these things as well, so really it is a 3-for-2 deal.)

With that being said, we are all ready to be done with it. We need a break, but we are in our last 2 months of class. The boys have their recital at the end of February, and it is like a lifetime until the end of February because M hates.hates.hates practicing.
G, on the other hand, just sits down and practices without tears or fighting or fidgeting.
I have been making M do it, and he complains.
I finally reached my breaking point and said he didn't have to perform in the recital, but he did have to go and watch G perform in the recital.
He complained about that, too.
I finally just said to him, "If I tell you to practice, you throw a fit. If I tell you you don't have to practice and will play in the recital unprepared, you throw a fit. If I tell you you don't have to perform in the recital at all, you throw a fit. I can't win."
After this, he decided to practice on his own without too much trouble, so we'll see how the next few weeks go.

(G "gets" music better than M does. I just don't think M has any natural ability or interest the way N and G do. I'm not even going to bother M with taking an instrument in middle school. I really just don't care anymore and don't feel like fighting him over it. I'm not sure what M's niche is, but I don't think it is music.)

I have told M he never, ever, ever, ever has to take another music lesson for the rest of his life after the recital, and then he cried because I said that, and he says he wants to take guitar one day.

Wall. Meet My Head.

There is a part of me that wonders why I'm doing this to him and me, but I knew when we started in late August that we were on the final stretch, and I think there is something to making your kid stick out something relatively short-lived just to finish it up.
Of course, short-lived to 40-something me is very different than to an 8-year-old child.

But there is another part of me that thinks I'm a complete idiot for making him follow through because he is just really done.

So am I helping him develop grit and stick-to-it-ness?
Or am I being a ruthless, short-sighted Tiger Mom?
The fact that I gave him an out to not even be in the recital but he opted to practice on his own and had a better attitude about it makes me think maybe it's a power struggle and when I gave up power, he was ok again.
Of course, we haven't practiced today so he may lose his damn mind this evening.

I don't always always don't know what I'm doing to raise these kids, but I'm glad there are books like the one I'm reading that help me feel good about the things I'm doing well and give me ideas for how to handle the stuff I'm uncertain about.
This book, in particular, is a reminder that I could do everything "right" (whatever that is), and my kids are their own people who have designs for their lives that may not be anything like what I envision. There is a whole lot I cannot control.
All I can know is that I tried my best and turned to experts to guide me. 

The problem with being an English teacher.....

is that it often makes listening to music so incredibly painful.  I am certainly not perfect with my grammar and language manipulation at all times, but gah.....

Like this lyric:

My head's spinning around I can't see clear no more.

What bothers me the most is that clear isn't clearly.  The double-negative doesn't help.  Needs some punctuation.

And then there is this doozy:

Let me photograph you in this light
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were before we realized we were sad of getting old.

What the freck?  

World's longest run-on sentence.  I don't care if she makes a gazillion dollars a day, this lyric has "poorly written" all over it.  

But the Grand Poobah of Terrible Lyrics has to go to this Paula Cole song:

So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the peace in every I

That song was released in 1996, and it STILL plagues me.  

The disappointment of stupid parental dreams

N doesn't want to take piano lessons anymore.

We started lessons when she was 8, mostly on a whim.  She struggled with math, and I knew all the research about music instruction possibly helping kids with math.  Plus, I never took music lessons as a kid.  I went to parochial schools, and it wasn't even an option to learn instruments; there was no orchestra or band as there was/is in the public schools.  I wanted her (and the boys) to have some private musical instruction experience.

Since I didn't know how to read music, I began lessons, too, so that I could help her and maybe help motivate her.

Last year, she began playing viola in orchestra and continues now in 6th grade, although that may end too since she is talking about foregoing orchestra in 7th/8th.

Our last piano lesson was in late May, and she didn't touch the piano until last week when I made her in order to prepare to restart lessons.

She complained that she can't remember the notes because she is getting them confused with alto clef, which she uses for viola.  She just doesn't want to do it, but she won't say she doesn't want to do it because she doesn't want me to be disappointed in her.

What I had to explain to her today is that agreeing to do something you don't want to do just so someone else isn't mad at or disappointed in you never, ever results in them being pleased.  She doesn't want to play piano anymore, which means she has a terrible attitude about practicing, which makes me angry and frustrated.  It is better to disappoint me once than to continue to frustrate/disappoint me every time she half-ass practices.

I told her, "Yes, I will be disappointed that you stop playing piano, but I'll get over it."

And I will.

I also explained to her that parents sometimes feel disappointed in their kids, and it really has nothing to do with their kids.  It is them.  The problem is the parents.

Like after college, when I interviewed at a big cigarette company.  I was 21 and fresh out of undergrad.  I was offered a job making probably 40K in a supervisor position on a factory floor.  I turned it down and took an editing job where I started at 17K a year.  I didn't want to smell like menthol cigarettes, and I didn't want to supervise anyone, especially not someone 20+ years older than me who might rightfully resent some ding-dong telling him what to do.

My dad couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I turned down "such a great opportunity."  He was a manager at another big local company, so this sounded like an amazing position.  I didn't disappoint my dad, although I felt like it at the time.  He was disappointed because he would have loved to have that opportunity if he had been in my shoes.  But he wasn't, and I had to make a decision that I could live with.

As it turned out, working at the editing company allowed me to get my master's degree (and the company paid half the cost).  The cigarette company eventually closed down its plant here, so I would have been unemployed or had to move away from my family/friends.

I told N this story today, and I told her that sometimes she needs to just be honest with me and not worry about whether I'm disappointed.

And I need to remember that even though I think I don't have secret dreams for my kids, I really do deep down.  And I need to sometimes be disappointed that my kids' dreams aren't my own.  

One hymn and a childhood comes rushing back

This weekend, the church that I've been attending for a bit celebrated its 175th anniversary.  Church members had voted on their favorite hymns which would all be sung/played on this special date.  I didn't vote nor stay up to date on the results because church music, as a general rule, isn't my thing.

Now I do have some church-related songs that I especially like, "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace" being two....both of which were sung this weekend.  But just as I connect with the spiritual in classic literature over the Bible, I tend to find spiritual salve in non-religious music.  Religious music is just too religious for my taste.  Maybe it is my too-analytical mind....if it is too easy to spot the spiritual it just isn't fun and a challenge anymore.

I heard a song that I hadn't heard since I was a child, "Here I Am" by Dan Schutte.  I didn't sing aloud but inside my head I remembered and sang every verse of this tune, which brought up all kinds of weird and mostly unpleasant feelings.

What my head and heart seemed to remember is attending church with my classmates every week, and this was a go-to song since it was easy for kids to sing and remember.  Hearing this song this weekend drudged up how much I felt awkward, disliked amongst my peers, made fun of for my "buddy" shoes, not athletic and therefore not popular.

I remember how, as a kid, I would sing the lyrics almost as a plea to God.  "Hey God, here I am!  Um, I'm happy to do whatever you ask but can you please get these kids to stop being jerks to me????"

Being surrounded each week in church by a whole slew of kids who seemingly hated me (and whom I hated back) didn't really make me love church.  I never could feel the peace of God in the midst of feeling like a pariah.

Of course, as I write this I feel childish because I know my perception of my experience was through a child's lens.  I'm sure it wasn't wholly accurate.  I don't know what my peers actually thought of me.  When I think of my Catholic school experience it is largely through a gray lens of terrible, but in truth I think I had plenty of ok experiences that I have forgotten smattered in with some really crappy ones which I remember larger than life.

It is at once interesting to me and bothersome how so many unrelated things can impact one's spiritual health. 

I'm still alive

You might think this post is about surviving yesterday and today with my children since the school district did, in fact, cancel school because it is cold.  We're weather pussies here, I tell you.
No, this post is about watching Pearl Jam: 20, a documentary by Cameron Crowe on "the" band that was my soundtrack for 4 years of undergrad.  The band I saw in concert and for which I skipped Shakespeare...the ONLY class I ever skipped in college.

I was, and continue to be, so completely bad-ass.

Watching this film as a 40-year-old, as a mother of 3, as I walked on the treadmill and then lifted weights, was a bit surreal.  When I was highly into the band, they seemed so much older than me, so far removed yet with an anger, a dissatisfaction that I could taste because that same anger, insecurity, dissatisfaction was what I ate and drank as well.

I don't know if it was shared overgrown teenage angst, the rut of late teens and most of one's twenties that makes people so lost, or if it was a cultural response to the politics and economics of the time.  But as I was watching the snippets of Andy Rooney complaining about the nonsense of "these kids being so angry.....and about what?," I didn't find myself agreeing with him, which is sorta what I expected.

The members of Pearl Jam are now middle-aged dudes with kids, and I am a middle-aged woman with kids.  Perhaps we need to be as old as Andy Rooney was when he launched that diatribe to get what he was saying?  Or perhaps it is a generational thing?  Maybe my entire generation, though mature now and with some wisdom, is still dissatisfied?  Though we've settled into ourselves and lives and our roles within those lives, perhaps there will always be a part of us that is inherently unhappy with the way things are with the world and within ourselves?

Or is it an artistic thing?  I have always been a writer, though on my itty-bitty scale of life, and not on the world stage at LARGE as Pearl Jam was and is.  Artists of various kinds often tend to be unhappy, morose, serious, deep, whatever.

And yet, watching the documentary, I felt a pulse of understanding of this aging experience.  The words do not mean to me now what they meant 20 years ago, but I can still feel what I felt then as I listened.  I remember what they meant.  I remember that vast lostness that surrounded me.  There is a part of my soul that remains stuck in it.

Am I not feeling it as intensely because I'm blessedly medicated or because I'm older?  Or both?

At 40, I'm past so much of that angst, but there is still the longing, the questioning, the existential turmoil that pinches me, keeps me churning, although at a much less hectic pace than it once did.  

Is something wrong, she said.

Well, of course, there is.

You're still alive, she said.

Oh, and do I deserve to be?

Is that the question?

And, if so, if so,

Who answers?

Who answers?

I, oh, I'm still alive.

Taylor Swift concert-going with one's daughter

N and I attended the recent Taylor Swift concert.  I have not been to a concert in probably 10 years, and I have to say that shows seem a little bit different from what I am/was used to.

Also, I am a dinosaur.

Let's do a little Then and Now comparison.

Concerts Then:  "Awesome! I am so stoked!!!"

Concerts Now:  "Meh."
(I don't dislike Taylor Swift, but I doubt I'd listen to her if I didn't have a 9-year-old daughter.)

Concerts Then:  "I smell POT!"
Concerts Now: "Damn, where's the pot smell?"

Concerts Then: "Look at that cute guy!"
Concerts Now: "Gee, my kid is cute in her little dress, swaying and singing."

Concerts Then:  No earplugs and days of tinnitus....
Concerts Now:  "We have to wear earplugs so we don't get tinnitus."

Concerts Then: "ROCK THAT GUITAR!!"
Concerts Now: "Hmmmm, isn't it interesting how he (Ed Sheeran) is able to loop that sound and make one guitar sound like full instrumentation?"

Concerts Then: "I hope this lasts forever!!!!"
Concerts Now:  "I hope this ends before 10 so N gets a decent night of sleep."

I really enjoyed Ed Sheeran's set, but since I am a dinosaur I prefer the singer w/ a guitar thing.  Taylor's numbers were very theatrical, but due to all the costume changes and such there was a lag afterwards so momentum wasn't continuous.  I thought her best numbers were when she was just pickin' and singin'.

I told D after we got home that Taylor Swift is wooden.  Her "interaction" with the audience seemed rehearsed and forced.  I doubt anyone under 30 would have caught onto that, but compared to Ed Sheeran she was like a mannequin in terms of personality.

Regardless of what I thought, I didn't go for me.  I went for N, and she says she had a great time. It was really cool to watch her taking it all in, and from her child's perspective I can see how the theatrical nature of the show really ramped up the wonder of it all.

Too much sex on the radio (and a semantics discussion)

Now that I'm a mom of an almost intermediate-level elementary school child, I worry that I may turn into a bit of an Anita Bryant, lambasting musicians for their lack of decency.

(Disclaimer:  I am not anti-gay.)

I am increasingly concerned about music lyrics especially since N (age 9) has discovered the......radio.

What I hear on the radio is loads and loads of sexual innuendo.  Some of it she doesn't get like Skylar Grey's "C'mon Let Me Ride" because she says stuff like, "That is so weird.  A song about riding a bike" (even though Grey is not talking about a Huffy or Schwinn).  Or Flo Rida's "Blow My Whistle."

But there are other more obvious to a kid references in other songs, like Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" in which he sings, "Your sex takes me to paradise."

I try not to freak out (on the outside), although I most certainly am (on the inside).  I try to remember that I liked Madonna's "Like a Virgin" when I was a kid, and I can imagine that my mother felt the same way as I do now.

I neither want nor expect my kids to watch Lawrence Welk.  I certainly don't want to listen to nothing but gospel hymns.  I like pop music.  I just don't want my daughter knowing too much about funky jungle sex before she is like, 25.

*******************************************************************************
Speaking of funky jungle sex, I recently bought Mars' "Unorthodox Jukebox" and listened to the song, "Gorilla."

Now I think Bruno Mars is a very, very talented singer, but that song has to be one of the dumbest I've ever heard in my life.  "Making love like.....gorillas????"

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I doubt very seriously that in Jane Goodall's research on mountain gorillas she ever referred to their copulating as making love.
Sex?  Fine.
Intercourse? Great.
Coitus?  Excellent.
Making love?  STUUUUUUUUPID. 

1 year piano anniversary

Tonight marks 1 year that N and I have been taking piano lessons.  I hadn't really given it much thought until our lesson this evening, when our instructor remarked on how far we've come.

A year ago tonight I didn't know musical notes.  I didn't know sharps or flats, the bass or treble clef.  I didn't know piano, forte or mezzo piano/forte.  I didn't know the difference between 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures (or what a time signature even meant).  I didn't know D.C. al fine or ritardando I didn't know chords or what it means to play a certain chord in the key of C or G.

I began taking lessons with N for two reasons:  as a means of supporting and helping her as she learned (because how can I possibly assist in her practices if I have no clue what she is doing) and because I'd started and stopped guitar lessons twice since I graduated college and thought it would be nice if I could actually stick with something longer than a New York minute.

We've hit a groove, N and I.  I've figured out a good system of motivating her.  I've learned how she needs to practice to get the most benefit and not become frustrated.

I've learned that my butt hitting the piano bench has the exact same effect as me dialing the phone and conversing....I am suddenly the most in-demand person in the world.

It's been fun and rewarding, and I hope it continues.

The piano....an update

N and I began taking piano lessons on Jan 2 of this year.  We are now into month 3, and while we still enjoy it, I admit that getting N to practice is often as fun as getting daggers shoved into my eyes.

Some of the practice unpleasantness is due to N's desire to play too quickly, which often results in her messing up, which results in her becoming frustrated.  Our piano teacher tells both of us two things over and over and over:  Play slowly and count out loud as we play.  N does neither of these when she practices at home.  I ask her to do these things repeatedly.  But as I am her mother, I am also an idiot.  Yes, that mother-daughter "thing" has only worsened since piano lessons began.

Some of this piano practice unpleasantness is due to the boys' desire to interrupt our practice by throwing books down the steps or running through the dining room and screaming.  Even if I don't lose my temper with N, I quickly lose it with the boys.

I will not be surprised if my blood pressure reads higher at my next wellness assessment.

I have committed both N and me to piano lessons for a year because I think that is a decent amount of time to get used to an instrument and get beyond the initial learning curve challenges.  In Jan 2013, we can reevaluate whether to discontinue or go on.  My hope is that N will continue, but I will allow her to stop if she chooses at that time.  I expect to continue because I do enjoy learning and knowing that I am getting better....although my own ability to practice is hampered by my daily sidekicks who often like to bang along as I'm trying to get through an etude.

Though is greatly dislike motivational charts as a means of getting kids to potty train or give up pacifiers, I have decided that a motivational chart may be the key to getting N to practice without a fight with mom.  She is supposed to practice 5 times a week, and often those practices fall between Fri-Mon (with her going back to the piano twice daily to practice on Saturdays and Sundays).  If she practices without an argument and works carefully/slowly, she will earn star stickers.  If after a month she has earned a certain number of stars, she will get a special "treat."

She seemed to like this idea, as do I, although it means one more thing for me to keep up with.

I tell myself that I don't make a stink over things like her clothing choices or other "little" things, but I feel strongly enough about learning an instrument that I am willing to fight for this.

I think.

Me and my big ideas

In my 38 years, I have discovered that I often get ideas that seem to come from nowhere.  I just get a notion of something I'd like to do.  Soon after this idea takes seed in my mind, it seems there are always these strange conversations with people or I meet a person with a skill or information that reinforces whatever idea was taking shape in my head.  These serendipitous events make me think that I should run with my idea.  That maybe this is the universe saying, "Go for it."

I always, always listen to these instinctive gut reactions I have.

My most recent "big idea" started in the late summer/early fall.  I determined that it was important to me that my children be exposed to a musical instrument.  Neither of my parents play instruments so they never encouraged it.  As a child I took 10 years of dance lessons but never had any desire to do music.  I attended Catholic school from grade 1 to 12 that did not offer band or orchestra (another reason why I'm pro-public education).  Our music classes were students singing.  I don't even remember being instructed on how to play the kazoo.

As an adult, my lack of musicality bothers me.  I wish I could play some kind of instrument.  In the weeks after college before I found a full-time job, I began taking guitar lessons but once a steady paycheck and 9-5 hours called, I dropped them.  After I had N, I took an adult education guitar class for awhile.

As it normally happens, after this idea began taking shape in my head, I happened to meet someone at a dinner with friends who teaches piano to children.  I was telling her how I'd like for my kids to learn an instrument, and she gave me some information about piano lessons.  Serendipitous event #1.

A few weeks afterwards, I met my oldest and dearest friend for breakfast.  She plays piano, and her husband is a music teacher.  I told her about my big idea and about what this friend of friends told me at dinner.  I mentioned something about renting a piano.  Kris informed me that once her husband's home sold, they would be needing to get rid of his piano (since she has one in her house where they now live), and maybe D and I could buy theirs.  Serendipitous event #2.

Fast forward 4 months or so, and we now have an upright piano sitting in our dining room.  N and I are scheduled to begin piano lessons on Jan 2.

Like my fitness "boot-camp" classes I take with a couple friends under the guidance of a trainer, I need the structure of lessons and being accountable to people other than myself.  By taking lessons with N, I will be far more likely to practice because I want to set a good example for her.   We can support each other in our efforts.

I don't expect either of us to become Chopin but it would be nice to be able to play the Happy Birthday song or a Christmas carol.

Let's hope this big idea works out as well as some of my other big ideas of the past.

Cross-country? Nope. Ballet? Nope. Piano? Possibly?

N's enthusiasm for cross-country waned considerably (click here for the back story).   I can't begin to know why, but she decided that she would rather take ballet lessons.  My enthusiasm, which was low for cross-country, is non-existent for ballet (click here for the back story on that).

She does Girl Scouts two times a month during the school year, and I have liked to keep her schedule open because it is hard enough to get dinner on the table, her homework done and all the kids in bed by 8:00 when we have nothing going on.  I am usually so exhausted from the 5:00 "crazy hour" that I have no desire to do anything in the evenings except enjoy knowing the children are unconscious.

During this past school year, she did two sessions of "Gymnastics Club" at school, which was perfect because it began right after school let out, was done at the school and didn't require me to reign in the boys while she was busy doing her activity.  I just picked her up an hour later from school than I normally do.  I like the idea of her doing these "short stint" activities because it gives her exposure to things without committing either of us to anything long-term.

I think 80% of the reason N wants to do ballet is because she would get to buy new shoes and cute leotards.  And that is not a good enough reason for me to deal with keeping the boys entertained in a dance studio waiting room AND put up with a completely over-the-top all.friggin.day.long recital at the end of the year.  N likes to dance, but she also likes to watch tv and draw pictures and mail letters to friends.  I don't see her as having an all-consuming passion for it.  Her enthusiasm for shopping at Justice is far stronger than her interest in dance classes.

She and G will be taking 4 weeks of swim lessons in August.  When N was nearly 4, I had her take swim lessons, but once G was mobile (and then M came into the picture), it was just logistical suicide for me to try to continue this.  After a little 6-year-old drowned at a nearby pool this summer, though, D and I decided to finagle the family schedule so I can take both N and G to swim classes two evenings a week.

In my fit of trying to find a way out of ballet classes for N, the idea of piano lessons popped into my head.  I never learned to play an instrument as a kid, partly because I was too into dance lessons and partly, I think, because my Catholic elementary/middle school didn't offer anything useful like orchestra or band the way public schools do.  My parents don't play music, so I never had any exposure.

So due to my own lack of experience as well as my firm belief that learning music can be a valuable learning tool in a variety of other areas of life, I thought that maybe N would be interested in learning piano.  I am interested in learning an instrument and thought maybe if N and I learn piano together, we can spur each other on to practice.  Just as doing exercise with a friend makes one far more likely to continue, perhaps the same is true of piano.

At the very end of college, before I found a full-time job post-commencement, I took guitar lessons and then took a few short sessions when N was a toddler.  I enjoyed it, but I admit to not being a very good "practicer."  I'm now finishing up Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, and after reading about the 10,000 hour rule, I am now really understanding how critical practice is.  I mean, I understand the "practice makes perfect," but reading objectively about it and learning about real life results is powerful.

Anyway, I brought up the possibility of piano lessons to N and she said she'd love to take piano.  I think N just wants to do something, and perhaps the boredom of being not fully occupied in July is part of that enthusiasm.

What's that racket?

I have not been cool in ages (if I ever was) or up-to-date on what's hip and hot in music, but browsing through MP3s on Amazon.com just makes me feel like a relic.

Some of the songs I recognized were because I had heard the Chipettes sing them on the Squeakquel soundtrack.  Some of the songs I know because N listens to Pandora sometimes and tells me who is singing what....Selena Gomez, for example.  How pathetic that my 6-year-old is guiding me through pop culture these days.

I was surprised that I actually knew some Katy Perry songs.  I was also surprised at just how sucky Katy Perry songs are.  Teenage Dream?  Seriously, what grown person would write about or deign to sing such stuff?

My kids throw grand-mal fits if they have to listen to my music, which I admit is fairly moody and weird.  Flaming Lips, Black Keys, Jeff Buckley.  So I try to buy music that is trendy/catchy/danceable for the kids, but is also something I don't mind listening to.

This evening I bought the clean version of Empire State of Mind, just because I like it.  The kids can deal.  And then I purchased Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me and Selena Gomez's A Year Without Rain because I can tolerate them, and N will be thrilled and think I am the world's greatest mom for 30 seconds until I do something totally lame.

The hardest part was finding clean stuff.  Most of what was out there is explicit.  When N was two, I played Hollaback Girl and told her the, "Ship has bananas.  B-A-N-A-N-A-S."  But she is way too savvy now to fall for that.  Listening to Pandora on Sunday I was waiting for her to ask me what a disco stick was, thank you Lady GAGA.

I'm gonna go crank up my gramophone now and do the fox trot.