Music is Fun--If You Get to Make It

My sister and brother-in-law are musicians.  Between the two of them, they have a dozen albums, play in multiple bands, and run a recording studio.  Ever since the twins were toddlers, they've been trying to get them in the studio to record a song.  Trouble is, they really didn't want toddlers in there with all that equipment, fragile guitars and lots of other "attractive nuisances" (a real legal term, according to DG).

Now the kids are definitely old enough, at 8, to try music.  Last weekend when we were there, this is what they came up with:



I know, the song is arguably little kid like, but come on! They performed all the instruments (except for rhythm guitar and bass, masterfully recorded by Uncle D).  It was so fun watching T1 go through the song, concentrating on his bass drum, making sure that he hit it hard enough, but not too hard.  His eyes focused on my hand waving down each time he was to hit; he held his mouth in a little, intense smirk, keeping his brain in only one place.

T2 was the consummate lead singer.  When we listened to the playback, she kept saying, "I just want to make sure it sounds perfect."  They did 2 live takes and a couple of over-dubs to put in the lead guitar, snare drum, and background vocals.  What an amazing, creative experience for them.

My brother-in-law is thinking of offering this kind of workshop for kids in the Bay Area.  I say, heck yeah.  Get those kids in the studio.  It's not music class like piano or violin, clarinet or flute, but it's having a vision, creating the components of that vision, and watching it all come together in a finished piece in a few hours. And it's FUN. Kids should be having fun.  And they don't have to be perfect at it to create something beautiful and memorable for themselves.

And then it got LOUD

Whoever said that girls are sugar and spice and everything nice, never hosted a baking party for 15 little girls.  There was plenty of sweetness, and I'm not just talkin' about the cupcake icing, sprinkles, and caramel apple cider.  But I had no idea how spicy these diminutive, spritely angels could be. 

First order of business?  Strom the hallway to see if they could mess up T1's room, which he had guarded with this:

You can't see it, but the sign says, "Keep Out! Boys Only!

 

 

A sea of screams leapt up and down the hall as they tried to crush the only semblance of a Y chromosome left in the house. 

Their enthusiasm in creating salt dough ornaments was beyond intense.  They were ninja warriors, wielding balls of kneaded dough like nunchucks  The concept of "less is more" was completely lost on their "more, more, more" little girly-ness.  The disks of dough were etched, poked, impaled, and razed so much that some girls needed to start over just to get one on the cookie sheet.

The decibel level really started to rise when the cupcake decorating began.  All of a sudden, when sugar was involved, voices got more shrill, like squawking crows.  "I want chocolate! I need pink frosting! Pass the cherries! I NEED CHOCOLATE!!" Decorating icing, sanding sugar, and sprinkles were pooled all over the table, and not so much on the cupcake.  Ultimately, the girls took to rolling their 2nd and 3rd frosted creations in the dregs of the abandoned sugar not worthy to find its way to the original, more decoration-savvy first cupcake.

And one by one, as they started to leave at the end of the day, the house got quieter and quieter.  DG came home after taking T1 on a playdate away from all the girls, and he said, "Why is the music on so loud?"  "Because it's an 8-year-old's birthday party, and it got LOUD."  That, or it's 1965 and I'm trying to hear it above the screaming for John, Paul, George and Ringo.

But above all, T2 had the time of her life.  She was Queen Bee, with all the drones buzzing around her.  This is her element.  It was all for her--not shared with her twin--not compromised to accommodate other friends or people's feelings.  She could take it all in.  And that's what birthday parties are for. 

I hope she remembers this party when she grows up.  I still remember the cake at my 6th birthday, and I marvel now at how my mom was able to know exactly what I needed to feel special.  T2 was special today, and now, as my ears are still ringing and I can almost feel how good the beckoning bed will feel, I am happy to have made her feel so.

Boredom, a Boy, and a Roll of Foil

Yesterday I went to pick up the kids for another marathon afternoon of soccer, karate, PTA functions, etc. When I arrived, I hustled T2 to change into soccer clothes, and T1 started in with the whining.  "Where's my DS? I want to play DS?  Why, Mommy? Why can't I play DS  Whhhhaaaaaaa."  This is a battle we have every week when T2 has soccer practice.  T1 rushes through his homework (that he does sitting on the bleachers) and then begs to play with some screen--the DS, his "Pokewalker," my Droid.  We're in a park, for God's sake!  Short of having two broken legs, he should be playing.  PLAYING.  Isn't that what little boys are supposed to do in the park?

Last week, he started in with the "I'm bored..." bull-sh*^%.  Oh no you didn't.  You did NOT just tell me you were bored?!  Boy, you don't know what bored is.  I showed him the perfectly climbable tree right. next. to. him.  I wanted to start with the, "When I was a kid, we found our own fun in mud pies and sticks. Blah, blah, blah," but I caught myself.  Didn't want to let on how OLD I am.  He did end up climbing that tree, and he had fun.  Lo and behold--no longer bored.

Yesterday, once he realized that I wasn't going to go back on my original command about staring at a video game in the park, he knew he had to come up with something else.  Enter this:

 This is a foil ball that T1 made in art class with some leftover foil.  Notice the little indentations for a face?  Eyes, nose, mouth?  It's a guy screaming for a body.  I suggested that we go to the store and buy some more foil.  He could make body parts and put them together.  Toothpicks become the "bones."  He said, "you can glue it for me," to which I replied, "Yeah, and the glue can be like the joints, muscle, and skin."

 

Then, Foil Guy together.  

 

T1 decided the foil man needed a "toy" and he started constructing this: 

Cut to home.  Here I am singeing my fingers with a hot glue gun to get the "muscles and joints" on the foil guy. Fortunately, the toothpicks are providing excellent structural integrity.

 

And then, it was done. 

 

 This little project is a wonderful testament to what kids can do with a little imagination.  T1 is so proud of his creation.  I can tell because at 10 pm and he came out from bed to ask me if it was finished.  He played with it for a minute, making it totter awkwardly across the kitchen counter.  The smile on his face said it all.  He made it--from nothing more than $3 worth of household products.  And he wasn't bored.

I don't want to sound like I never let him play video games or watch TV.  That's just not me.  God knows the TV has a sacred place in our house.  Like everything else, I am in charge of creating the balance.  There's a time and place for video games: when Mom's getting her hair done, at the bank during the signing of house loan documents, or when I'm engrossed in Real Housewives of New Jersey (okay, just kidding on that last one).  The park is not one of those places.  And I can't help but think that he's silently thanking me somewhere in his subconscious for this little respite from the technological age. Long live Foil Guy!

And the Camp Mom Award for Engaged Kids goes to Team Twins!

One of the best benefits of my job as a professor is having summers off (mostly--I usually have to work for 6 weeks of it) with my kids.  It means that I don't have to scramble to find some stimulating activity for them from the 3rd week in June until September 1st.  Here's where it gets complicated though.  Since I do have to work a little in the summer AND my semester begins at the wildly inconvenient time of the 3rd week in August, I do have to put the kids in some kind of part-time summer activity day camp.  This year, they did summer school and camp through the local school district and seemed to have a really good time.

Summer is almost over and the kids will be heading back to school with what I hope are sweet memories of our travels, fun days at summer day camp, and time at home with each other and me.  As a working mom, I always look forward to the time I get at home with them.  I get to be a stay-at-home mom for a sweet month.  And I always dream that this time will be filled with crafts and art projects, baking and swimming and card-playing.  Instead, I'm distracted by my own desire to read or sew or edit photos--write a blog, maybe.  It's mind boggling how I can want to be with them so badly, and when we are together for a day, I struggle with giving them my undivided attention.

Cut to 7-year-old twins being silly, ramping each other up, getting critical about who is getting what turn, and then, ultimately, trying to kill each other from the togetherness.  Quick, Mom, do something!!!! It's time to engage (like Elastigirl says to Mr. Incredible).

Enter Camp Mom.  I thought if I could replicate all the fun of camp at home and give the kiddies some purpose for the time together, we'd all have a better summer.  I came up with a schedule of activities for the whole day.  Campers had to tidy up their "cabins" (rooms), pick a team mascot (stuffed animal), and create a team song to perform during the night time "campfire."  We had a scooter race, obstacle course, scavenger hunt (otherwise know as shopping at Trader Joe's).  They created cards for their grandfather, something I had begged them to do for days, that they were finally willing to do under the guise of the "Bon Voyage Boat Craft" at Camp Mom.

At the end of Camp Mom, teams were awarded "Trophies" that they had helped design.

There were a few teachable moments during the day.  The team competitions really had them in a frenzy over fairness.  Having points awarded based on being the fastest or jumping the farthest taught them about sportsmanship (after a considerable amount of crying).  Creativity points were awarded to the most thoughtful mascot decoration or "cabin" arrangement, presenting them with a stronger sense of perseverance and attention to detail. T1 said at one point, "I was having so much fun that I forgot that I hadn't played my DS!" Really?  You mean I can get your face out of that machine by providing you with a creative endeavor that speaks to your sense of competition?  Why had I never tried this before?

More than the success of Camp Mom as far as the kids were concerned, (trophies! field trips! treats!) was the complete sense of engagement with each other.  I got what I had been looking for all summer. While I know that this wasn't rocket science, and that creative moms do stuff like this everyday, for me, it was a triumph over the anxiety that sometimes takes over when I try to figure out how I'm going to be with my kids and accomplish all the things that fulfill me at the same time.  I gave myself over completely to the nurturing of these children, without the distraction of the work that I wanted to get done, for this one day, and it felt right.

While we were at the park, me orchestrating an obstacle course race, another parent commented on what we were doing.  "That's quite a system you've got going there.  Have you been doing this all summer?"  I laughed.  "Are you kidding?" I said, "we've only been doing this for today!"  But for that one day, we were a unit--like a real camp.  We had a common goal--to have fun together--and that we did. 

Think I should put together Camp Mom for this fall?  Hmmmm.

Let's Pretend.......Words Heard from the Playdate

Having twins and working outside the home, for me, means that I very rarely schedule playdates for my kids.  Why would I?  They are the same age.  They have similar interests.  They play well together.  Playdates are complicated, what with the driving them here or there, or coordinating drop off and pick up times.  And what's more, I only really get to spend extended periods of time with my kids on the weekends, do I really want them gone for 2,3,4 hours?

The answer is it's not up to me.  I'm beginning to learn that it is better for my kids' development and their imaginations to play with other kids their age--and the same gender.

Yesterday, I scheduled playdates for both kids.  Each one had a friend over.  These were looooong playdates.  The first kid arrived at 7:45 am and the last kid left at 5 pm.  I made 17 grilled cheese sandwiches and cut 100 strawberries.  Okay, well not really, but it seemed like it.  Their imaginary play just evolved from each corner of the house.

I decided to spy, stealthily from place to place observing, like a social scientist scrutinizing subjects in contrived habitats. You wouldn't believe what I heard.

"Let's pretend we were best friends, and we're fairies."


"No, we're jazz cats, and we have to come to this island every once in a while, and people take care of us."


"Wait, we're tiger cubs and you have to tame us."


"Let's pretend we're putting on a show and I'm the only one who can do this special move."

 "Let's pretend we have to have a battle and we have to jump off this couch into those cushions to see who wins."



"And we're magic and we have to use wands to make spells."


The boys had created an elaborate game that resembled skeeball and involved what boys like best--throwing things.  They threw Mighty Beanz up the skateboard ramp and into the playhouse, assigning different points for each window or door the toy went through.  DG said the game should really be called, "Where's My Mighty Bean" because that was all they said over and over as they looked for the chucked toys.

The girls set up a spa in my bathroom.  There, all my nail polish bottles were strewn around the bathroom floor and they were painting each other's fingertips nails.  It was hard to get a word in edgewise as they cheeped like baby chicks and squealed their approval of each other's looks.  I intervened and served as manicurist for a couple of minutes.

The boys made a battlefield of the couch cushions.  The girls were a dozen different characters in a multitude of made up stories from fairies to princesses to dancing divas.

I discovered in my scientific observation that boys are different than girls.  Ha.  Who knew.  And all this time I was treating my twins as just kids.  I was encouraged by their gender-specific play.  Both kids were able to spend time imagining a world where they could just be who they wanted to be.  There was no looming school work, no scheduled activity, no birthday party, no parents' errands that needed to drag them away from the sheer joy of being a seven-year-old boy or girl.  Maybe more of these playdates are a good idea.

Who's this game for anyway, them or me?

Ah the first signs of spring--the sun peeking through the clouds, the warm weather returning (before you laugh, we did have a coooooold winter by So Cal standards, but don't judge me), and Opening Day--little league for whole stinkin' town.  Pretty much everyone with kids in this small town joins little league when their kids are five, maybe even before, if they can.  We opted to stay out of little league last year.  T1 seemed way to squirrelly to focus on a game where he would need to stand in a field and pay attention to something going on about a mile away.  No, we chose to start this year.

When I went to sign up my very excited son, I learned that they had leagues for girls too.  T2 and T1 would both be part of this community wide event.  And I mean event.  Last year, when we tried to get kids over to play on Saturdays in spring, no can do.  Baseball game, sorry.  Maybe next time.  We were not going to miss it this year. They put them both on the same team.  How convenient, I thought.  This makes me so glad. No having to cart them to different practices and games that overlap.  Super.

So we show up on Opening Day and we see all of T1's cub scout troop are together on the Cubs (we're the Angels).  Then the rest of the first grade boys are on the Giants.  All the girls are on other teams for 7- and 8- year-olds who have been playing for 2 years.  When I ask them how they all turned up on teams with kids they know, they say, "Oh, we requested it.  These kids all played together last year." Our team has really little 6-year-olds and a couple of 5-year-olds.  None of whom we know. And none of whom played last year.

Here's the thing:  I am finding myself hugely bothered by this.  Why didn't anyone tell me I could choose a team?  Why didn't I put them in last year so they could be with their friends?  Won't they be angry when they have to play against all of their friends?  I guess my own insecurities come out.  I envision myself sitting in the stands, with moms I know, watching and cheering on our little darlings.  When we play the Cubs, I will see the moms I know in the other set of bleachers.  I might feel sorry for myself that I didn't get to be on that team.  But it's not about me, is it?  My kids aren't bothered that they didn't play last year.  They don't care that kids they know are on other teams.  They are not bothered by this at all.  They are loving getting to know all their new teammates.  And they love their coach.  Who's baseball for anyway, them or me? 

T1 with his team

 T2 checkin' her mit

Up at bat

On deck

I look at their smiling faces here, and I realize that little league is not about me being able to create a community of friends.  It's not about me feeling left out of the other team.  It's about them, learning to have fun in a sport that is about teamwork.  They're up to the task.  Maybe my maturity level needs to come up a bit.  And to think of it.  I thought they were too young..... 

Oh well, at least I got to go out to a fancy dinner afterward and order this:

Lobster salad from Crustacean

............................................

Fast forward to the next day's laundry.  Whose pants are whose?

It's gonna be a long season.....

"This is more fun than TV!"

The twins had a birthday last week.  This will probably be the last year that we give them a party for ANYONE they want to invite.  Both invited their whole class.  T1 invited the Cub Scout troupe, T2 the soccer team.  We expected about 30 kids at this party.  It was absurd.  We booked an indoor playground (I know it's California and it was about 77 degrees outside, but still) for two separate parties with two separate cakes, snacks, paper goods, and goody bags (don't even get me started on the goody bags...).  We had light up Mickey Mouse ears for 50 people.

While all of this seems like a lesson in excess, it is nothing compared to the haul of gifts they got.  Gift cards, Lego sets, books, Barbies, science sets, and a marshmallow shooter (coolest toy ever. Really).  I mean, the living room looked like Christmas morning.

I marveled at how generous all of their friends were.  Way more than what their Christmas will look like this year.  And I wonder about the message associated with all these gifts.  While the kids were appreciative of what they received, I wonder if they will have a sense of entitlement at all gift-giving opportunities.  Will they expect extravagant gifts from their friends next year?  From us?  What about giving back? 

But something wonderful happened.  They began playing.  They opened Legos and built them.  They colored, they read.  T1 said, "this is more fun than watching TV!"  That's when I knew there was some redemption in it all.  If I can pay this generosity forward by raising self aware kids who want to explore their world instead of being told how to react to it, I'll be very blessed.

Beaches and Theme Parks and X Games, Oh My!

Summers are different when you have kids. When I was younger, before marriage, kids, you know, responsibility, summers were for relaxing, sitting around, staying up late, reading lots and lots and lots. Now my summers are jam packed. I wouldn't necessarily call what we do in summer a "vacation." I remember my last "vacation." There was an over-water bungalow and the words, "Bora-Bora" on the hotel stationery....ah memories. No, now we take trips. Trips to theme parks, the beach, places with cotton candy and merry-go-rounds.

I love my summer "trips" with my family. Maybe they're not the most relaxing or rejuvenating, but they are FUN. The looks on our faces can attest to that. Here are some highlights:

Parrot talons in your shoulders do feel really weird.




Big hat is a must.




Always gotta find a place where the kids can go on one of these




At the X Games in Los Angeles, we watched the inaugural "Big Air Rail Jam" skateboarding event. These guys skateboarded down that giant ramp, landed on a tiny rail, jumped off the rail and came down another ramp. Pretty amazing.



Don't we look happy? I hope you had a great summer too. Back to school (and back to work) is just around the corner....