It’s Whiteboard Wednesday. If you missed last week, this means that I post one of the bizarre statements that came reeling out of my mouth over the past few days.
Three weeks ago, my kids started taking music lessons. They practice on a keyboard which my husband bought for $100.
If you’ve ever tried to get a six-year-old to practice every day, my sympathies. If you’ve ever tried to get two six-year-olds to practice every day, I know how you feel.
On one of our recent practice sessions, this is what came out of my mouth:
If you are desperately bored or have ten seconds to spare, you can hear William practicing. The vomit key comes after the cuckoo clock, the cow mooing, and the rooster crowing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgdoLFAXJtU]
Child prodigies of the world, you can breathe a sigh of relief.
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How about you? What crazy things have you said or heard this week?
Ha Ha… you got a crazy sense of a humor to deal with the chaos. or maybe its just time you have actually lost your marbles and haven gone crazy. Or maybe you are so crazy that you blew our minds?! Lol …. great post.
Glad you enjoyed it. One of my (untested) philosophies is that if parents are a bit more loopy than their children, the kids start to act normal.
I ordered a sweater from Gap and it arrived in the mail today. It smelled like shit. Literally. I mean, like true to life fecal matter.
I didn’t want to muck around with return shipping, so I took it back to the store to exchange it. When the lady at the counter asked why I was returning the item, I said because it smelled. She gave me the bitchiest look ever, and she made me further explain. I was just about to say “like shit” but then I realized that my child and another child were 4 feet away and I had to say,
“I’m returning this sweater because it smells like poopy.”
There is no turning back from that statement.
ROFL. I’d like to read the “reason for return” on the paperwork. Too funny. And may the next sweater be in a shit-free scent!
I was subjected to keyboard (first it was organ, then we moved on to piano) lessons for much of my childhood. My initial disinterest soon mutated to sheer hate the longer this went on. From when I was 5 till when I was 14 my parents cajoled, bribed and finally threatened me regularly to get me to do my 1/2 hour of practicing every day. At some point they gave up, exasperated, realizing that I was much better at (and having more fun) running around outside and being active than sitting still at a piano.
My mom always justified the piano lessons because when SHE was a child, SHE had to take lessons. At some point she quit taking lessons, and then as an adult, she regretted it. So in her mind, she was only doing me and my sister a favor, saving us from regretting something later. (When in essence she was projecting her own desires for herself on her kids.) The fact that I had no love for the isntrument (or real aptitude) didn’t really matter to her.
For years afterwards I kept hearing: “Oh you will regret it… you have no idea how you will regret quitting piano lessons.” Folks, just for the record – to this day, I have not a shred of regret. In fact, I have negative (ie. less than zero) regret. And I dont even want to think about how much of my life I wasted sitting at that damn piano. GRRRRRRRR…..
I hear ya. I too took organ lessons for five years. I don’t regret it though. But I also don’t regret quitting. Still, lessons are much more fun today and include songs, composing, colouring, etc.
With William, though, it’s a bit of a push. I do believe he needs to be pushed a bit, though; if left to his own choices, he would stay home all day and play computer games.
I have to say that I love that you’re starting your children with music education early in their lives. My husband just happens to be a private piano teacher and he has students of a wide age range, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s come home after a lesson with his 5 and 6 year old students ready to bang his head against the wall as they can’t always focus.
One of my favorites was with two of his 12 year old students when practicing Christmas music:
“Santa Claus has a slay driven by reindeer, and if they drive/fly too fast, they will crash and Santa will die. So, stop playing so fast.”
Needless to say the kids were driven to hysterics by that statement, as they were older and Santa is nothing more than a myth to them. All I can say is thank god there weren’t any younger kids in the room 🙂
That is hilarious. I don’t know how teachers of young kids do it. I really don’t.
I think that a bronze plaque emblazoned with the motto, “Playing the Vomit Key Does Not Count as Practicing,” should be standard in every music teacher’s living room. That is funny. (I’m starting to doubt that emblazoned is a word or at least means what I intended, but I’m just going to go with it.)
Slim, our 6YO, started piano about three weeks ago. He hasn’t stumbled across the vomit key yet. But I sort of hope he does. The greatest motivator for him at this point is that I keep telling him that if he practices, someday he’ll be able to play the Darth Vader is Now Entering the Building song.
Thanks for some laughs.
Chase McFadden
http://SomeSpeciesEatTheirYoung
I think I want to learn to play the Darth Vader is Now Entering the Building song. Really. And I love emblazoned!
I am so impressed that you’re teaching 6-yr old twins to plan. Vomit key included! We’re still in the push random keys while singing at the top of our lungs phase.
This is my first time reading and I think you’re great — glad I clicked over from Chase’s site.
Thanks for the AM laughs,
Amy
Thanks for reading. And Chase is a very funny guy!
LOL! That statement made me choke on my apple which is not like choking a chicken. Anyway, very funny.
Sometimes I wish it were fiction…enjoy the remnants of your apple!
Wouldn’t it be great if our computer keyboards came with a vomit key? Or an “hysterical weeping” key? It would save so much time.
Brilliant idea, Lorraine. They could market keyboards to exhausted parents: in addition to the “hysterical weeping” key, we could have the “maniacal laughing” key (for when we’re on the edge) and the “Theme from Jaws” key (for when the walls are closing in on us) and the “Hallelujah chorus” (for when the kids are finally asleep).
I feel your pain! three years of music lessons for the twins starting at 5!
They found all sorts of sounds on the keyboard, but thankfully…no vomit key.
Our rule was, once they’d practiced their song three times with “normal” sound, they could play it with any sound they liked. Which led to some very interesting versions of the classics.
🙂
Great rule. I’m going to implement that soon. I can already hear Mary Had a Little Lamb played to the sound of rooster crowing…
My oldest wanted to play sports like her dad, so she asked me to enroll her in basketball. If you think its hard to get a six year old to practice a piano…try and get a girl to practice her dribble.
Her little brother, age two, decided he wants to play instead. But his idea of playing basketball is licking the ball and rolling it on the ground to see how much dirt it could pick up. After taking the ball away and attempting to hide it, he miraculously another ball and after repeatedly asking him to stop i yelled, “LUKE STOP LICKING THE BALL, YOU DONT LICK BALLS!” where my other son, age four, cracked up and started singing, “haha luke licks balls” for over an hour!
ughh….children
LMAO. That is hilarious – and you describe it so well. Yup, licking your balls…
I was forced to practice for a lot of years. Now I can play with mediocrity and appreciate the effort my parents made trying to force me to be musical. I’ve also enjoyed moving my giant piano four times. Not.
I don’t think I said a single notable thing this week. I shall try harder!
Yes – it’s not as easy of an instrument to move as a flute, is it? Thanks for commenting!
hahaha thanks for the laugh!! i was thinking of a different vomit key. the kids are not into music thanks god! cos i cant sing , none of us can or play an instrument! they are all into sports–football, rugby, hurling, tennis and hand ball. so we spend our days outside. the down side is, i have to wash muddy clothes and shoes all the time!
It’s got to be fun saying the word “hurling.” It’s vaguely reminiscent of vomiting.
i never looked at it like that till now! lol hurling is an irish ball game– its like polo without the horse.
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