Day 2: Rockin' the Suburbs

We love to dance.

We love to sing.

We love to sing while dancing.

As a parent, I decided early on that I would not get sucked into the world of children's music. No way, Jose! We would sing kids songs, and watch kids shows, but when it was time to play the tunes, oh, the tunes would be rockin. Or at least our particular version of wuss rock. There would be no kids bop in our house.

It's thre real deal ladies and gentlemen.

I have a friend who recently told me that she's spent so much time listening to what her kids like, or what she thinks that they would like, that she doesn't even know what kind of music she likes herself.

That's tragic.

Truly tragic.

As a kid, we listened to the music of my parents. Lots of beach boys and beatles, jethro tull, the doors, elton john, billy joel, the mamas and the papas, john denver, james taylor....you get the gist.

My brother right now has a thing for the Jackson 5. I don't get it, but I know, He'll be there.

The tunes in our home today are a bit different than those I grew up with, but not by much.

With the ipod on shuffle every single day, the Monkey regularly turns to me and says, "oh mama, I like that song. Turn it up." Or, he'll ask, "Mom, what's that song about."

The kid has a good ear. And some good moves.

He likes to listen and to groove. I love to watch him get his groove on, sort of like Napoleon Dynamite, his alter ego.





So does Chicker. He's quite the music guy, too. His favorite song, since he was born, is the Beatles, "All my lovin'." When I sing it to him, he smiles. When he hears it on the pod, he smiles. How he knows that song - over every other song I'm not quite sure, but he does.

Day 1

I'm at church. Obviously paying a lot of attention.

I love texting and blogger aps and technology. When I graduated from high school we didn't even have a computer lab. In 1996. The computer we had at home was my moms brick of a laptop for work. To do our homework we had to do it days in advance so my mom could print at work and we could have a couple revisions.

After watching a movie with my husband the other night I reminded him of my first cell phone purchase. We'd known each other about two months and spent a lot of time on the phone. My mom, being very aware of the minutes I was racking up kindly informed me that I needed to talk to "my boyfriend" on my own phone.

That simple act over 7 years ago, because of a boy could be the precipous for my technology addictions today.

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Finding a voice

Something we all work at, right? Finding our voice, our place in society, our role as a child, a spouse, a parent, a student....

I found my voice years ago, I think. Sometimes it falters, but early on I formed opinions and forged my existence - the high road - like robert frost said, "the road less taken".

I've always wanted to stand out - but not be noticed. Be a friend, but not have to be thanked. Be like my mom, but a little more on time (mom, remember all those times you were supposed to pick me up from school in Jr. High and you never came and I walked home? That's what I mean).

Today sucked. One of those icky, can't stand my life sort of days. Toilet training may be harder on the parent than the child. That's what I've decided anyway.

Tonight though, I went to my little brother's junior high choir concert. He was the only blond haired blue eyed boy in the whole concert choir. He stood out. He is finding his voice.

He loves to sing. He has always loved to sing. He sings all day long.

I love to sing with him.

His choir posse tonight did a rendition of "stand by me". It was pretty cool. He stood in the back, a little shy and embarassed, but sang loud and proud. If only his choir teacher could hear him sing that song on Friday's after school with Chunky and Allen and Parkie in the basement. Then, he'd have done a solo.

My two year old also loves to sing - he sings all day long. He has a new song. The tune fluctuates, but the words go like this: "I never get to go outside in the snow and the rain...."

I can't wait to see the blond blue-eyed boy that he'll turn into.



And Chicker? He's finding his voice, too. His voice is loud and powerful. He is making his presence known - and boy do I know what he's telling me. I don't know what he sounds like, but he screams all the day long. Since he doesn't sleep much, that's a lot of hours of loud, boisterous noise.



Imagine this screaming - this happy excited to be alive screaming, all day long.

Every single day.

remember - he doesn't nap.

It's coming again.

It's almost here folks.

NaBloPoMo

National Blog Posting Month is upon us, starting November 1st.

Are you ready? Can you do it?

Let's dance, break it down.

One of the bigger milestones

Toilet training

Something I desperately wanted for my 2 year old but something that after a few reckless attempts over the summer I'd failed at miserably.

As parents, we decided that we'd wait until the first Saturday in November for a toilet training barrage on the kiddo, once little league football was over and we were home on the weekend.

Well, Saturday night, the monkey had other plans. He'd been wearing, for kicks, "big boy pants" on some evenings and he wanted them on Saturday night.

With an hour or two of hawk-like supervision from dad, Elliott figured it out and peed in the toilet. He slept in underwear that night, woke up dry, and did awesome yesterday - even surviving a couple rides in the car.

Today - dry again in the morning and it's been mommy dearest on toilet patrol and guess what - I'm exhausted! Absolutely wiped out. I'm so proud of my boy, and he's doing great, but this constant supervision - along with everything else I'm supposed to get done today and taking care of the chicker has worn me out.

But, it's so worth it to know that there are no more diapers.

And he has such a cute skinny little butt.

To commemorate the occasion, enjoy a clip from music class. Watch my little non-participator/beat to his own drummer/space cadet in action. It's meant for another post, but my little fart is so much like me it's scary.