When words fail, music speaks.

Music is a language we share in my house. My kids mostly listen to vastly different music than I do, but that doesn't ever stop us from having a random dance party in the kitchen when something randomly plays, and demands us to play, too. It's The Go Go's, or Taylor Swift, or even Emenim. We've sung along in the car together to Imogen Heap, and U2, and Jack Johnson, and Coldplay. The other day my daughter shared a song with me, and I followed it up with a song new to her. I raised a boy who played the trumpet in band, and the younger two want drums. Give us things to bang on loudly, they ask. And I'm kind of excited about that.

No, don't get me wrong; I'm absolutely not looking forward to those first painful few months where it all always sounds like an endless river of noise made specifically to drown out every last bit of sanity in my brain that I will cling to in hopes of not tossing those drums onto the bonfire in the back yard one sunny afternoon. I'm not looking forward at all to the eventual competition it will surely turn into; who can drive mom crazy first; best; longest without being threatened with bodily harm. And then, the competition will turn against each other--who's playing better. Because their first critics are always going to be each other. And they spare no criticism, as siblings do, I guess.

What I am looking forward to, though, is seeing the language of music expanded in our home. To see them pick up an entirely different level of sophistication in the pronunciation of this thing that moves our hearts, our feet, our mouths. To share the rhythm of their learning and to see the doors in their lives opening, music leading the way. I don't expect them to be musicians, but to appreciate yet another universal language, like math, that connects their lives to the rest of the giant world they have yet to discover.

Sorry, neighbors.
(We're also planning on getting a piano.)
;)

Crazy little thing called Age.

I like to think that age is just some number; an indication of the number of years one has traversed the human condition, and precious little else of significance is weighted within. It would explain why I seldom feel like a bone fide "grown up" despite that I'm nearing the {holy shit} 39th year since my birth, or that I have a child that just last week reached the {holy shit x 2} 20th year since his own. I have a friend that is in her 60s, and was just today flirted with by someone not much older than my 20 year old. And it's exactly at that point where my brain puts on the screeching halt of the brakes and calls me a hypocrite.

It's not because I have any interest in being flirted with by anyone other than my spouse, (I don't), but because my first thought is immediately "he's just a baby." It's some weird part flattery and a whole lot of feeling like a pedophile. And I didn't even do anything wrong! Was so oblivious to the whole affair that it wasn't until I got home with my goods and receipt that I realized that there was a phone number scrawled across a scrap of paper. It made me laugh. Out loud. And it also makes me genuinely feel like a great big jerk that I can't take a compliment without dissecting it and trying to find the ulterior motive waiting to jump out and bite me.

Dismissing age as just a number, though, erases the actual experience of all of that living that has happened in that span of time. Things both big and small that conclude into the  amalgamation of the person that we are becoming. Certainly, I would be offended if someone dismissed me as "just a baby" because I am arbitrarily younger than they are. That they would be moved to laughter because I found them attractive? Wow. That sucks. I have lived a lot in my not-quite-(gulp)-forty years; I have a lot to offer, damn it! That said, I often wonder if I will always feel like a kid. Am I the only grown up that feels like a kid tossed unceremoniously out into the world, just trying to keep my head above the rising tide of numbers gathering below me? And do I even *want* to feel every second of those numbers? [No. No, I don't.]

Here's the thing, though: when it comes to matters of more-than-friends, I think that's where the water starts getting murky for me, and I guess lots of other folks. My mom once freaked out, just a couple of years ago, in fact, that I find some guys her own age attractive. "He's an old man!" I volleyed back, " Who cares. LOOK AT HIM." (Rob Lowe, you still have it; I have thought so since I was a pre-teen.) But speaking of pre-teens, do I want my own daughter to ever entertain thoughts about guys her mother's age at any point in her life? Oh Hell No! I'm totally fine with riding the hypocrisy train where that's concerned.

Oh well, it is all what it is. The human condition is equal parts hilarious and horrifying. I guess most of the time I'm just glad to be along for the ride.

When all else fails, aim for the stars.

In knee deep snow on Monday, I found myself hanging out laundry to dry. The wind-chill was 27 degrees, but the sun shone brightly for the first time in a week. The kids were running out of warm pajamas to wear, and I thought I'd see what I could do about it. My little hair-brained idea worked quite well! I should actually be out there again today doing my own; this promises to be our last sunny day this week, with some sort of precipitation, as yet to be decided, heading for us again in time for Christmas. The weathernerds can't seem to make up their minds; maybe snow, maybe rain, maybe ice. I now thoroughly understand why, one year, one of the weathermen showed up on tv with what looked like a busted lip, which he never conveniently mentioned. He was the same guy that, during the blizzard of '93, swore we would only get two inches of snow. Twelve hours later, we had 3 feet of the stuff.

Surviving The Storm

The phone rang at 6:07 on Friday morning. I was in bed, and the phone was in the other room; I let it ring while I snuggled deeper under the blankets, and try to let sleep enfold me again. I figure that it's the school's robot calling to say there was no reason to get up out of bed that early to get the kids off to school - there was a snow storm coming; hell, it was already here. I always find it frustrating that they would call that early to wake you up and tell you not to bother waking up. I guess most people would be about to wake up for the day at that time, anyway; I am not most people though, and the irony isn't lost on me. I distantly hear my children stumbling around the kitchen about 30 minutes later; a while after that, I hear our car pulling into the driveway - my husband returning from work. At some point, I feel him snuggle into bed with me, and I drift off to sleep again.

There's Nowhere To Go

My children are on "fall break", which is some random point in time roughly 2 months after school starts in which everyone decides that it is time for a four day weekend. I don't know if this happens all over the country, or if it's just us, but I think it's a relatively new occurance; I certainly don't remember being gifted with arbitrary long weekends. Even if I had, there would have been not much to do anyway, except sit at home and make a nuisance of myself or spend the weekend at a friend's house if their parents were braver souls than my own.