Sunday, October 07, 2007

Books and Music

Life just rolls along. The new car is very nice and I'm feeling a little better about driving it. We've celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary and my 36th birthday. It's incredibly weird to watch the leaves turning and falling when it's 88 million degrees with the humidity index at "Beastly".

When we had Pi, I wondered how his interests would develop as he grew. I hoped that he would like the things that Smitty and I liked, but of course would support any interest he had, even if it was the roller derby or the Young Republicans or something equally alien to us. Anything but Scientology; I just don't know if I could feign any kind of interest or support in that.

Thankfully, as is Pi's wont, he has given us no cause for concern (yet) in this area. Two of my passions are reading and singing, and so far Pi seems to love both of those. He loves to go to the library and find new books, and he memorizes books very quickly. No skipping pages allowed! We checked Silly Sally by Audrey Wood out of the library, read it ten times in a row at every sitting for a few days ("a-guine!, a-guine!"), and then put it in the diaper bag for a trip where it stayed for about two weeks. When he pulled it out again, he opened the book to the first page and recited it word for word, while I gaped at him with tears filling my eyes.

I used to sing the same songs night after night at bedtime, and now Pi is expressing his musical tastes rather than submitting completely to mine. His current favorite is Harry Belafonte - we sing "The Banana Boat Song" and "Turn the World Around" every night. My most perfect family moment so far occurred the other night at dinner, when he was singing "Turn the World Around", and in the middle of it, shouted out "Sing together!"

Now, Smitty has a great ear and a nice voice, but does not like to sing. He once got in trouble at kindergarten for not singing "Happy Birthday" to a classmate - his mom found him crying in the corner while everyone else was eating cake. It makes me very sad to think that this teacher pretty much killed any chance that little Smitty might ever grow comfortable expressing his musical side. But when Pi asked, Daddy answered, and for a few brief moments, all our voices rose up together in joy and family love...

"Whoa-ho! So is life! A-ha! So is life!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love it! I can't wait to see you guys.
~Meghan

Left of Liberal said...

When Ash was a baby, his favorite bedtime lullaby was Sinead O'Connor's "Black Boys on Mopeds" which I sang to him every day. (Talk about things he'll rehash in therapy later!) Now that he's nearly 14, he hates every song I've ever liked and exclusively listens to techno and ragtime.