Everyone has crazy, over-scheduled children and the mishegas that goes with that. I’m not alone in the “Who am I taking where today?” mindset. This year’s planning has required extra care: Pie has Hebrew school Tuesday and Thursday (with a friend who comes home with us); Doodles on Monday and Wednesday. Dance on Monday (with a different friend who comes home with us). Soccer for Pie on Mondays and Thursdays; viola for the boy on Mondays and Thursdays. Girls Scouts the first Friday of the month. And this doesn’t include weekend games and Hebrew school nor the upcoming hockey season.
Pie has been taking piano lessons for a couple of years. And for a couple of years I’ve begged, screamed, bribed, and screamed some more about her practicing piano. She just wouldn’t do it. No amount of anything would get her to practice. So I said, “Fine. No more piano.” I’m not going to pay for her to take the same lesson over and over because she wouldn’t practice. She agreed pretty quickly and we said we’d re-think instruments in 4th grade when wind instruments are introduced at the elementary school. Third grade is string instruments, which she has no interest in, and I’m not letting her do an instrument this year when our schedule is already crazy and she refuses to practice.
Perfect.
Until she came running out of school today. “I’m going to play the bass! I’m going to play the bass!”
And now the battle of the wills begins. Me, who doesn’t have the inclination for her to 1) play an instrument twice her size and 2) not practice yet another instrument and 3) schedule in more lessons because bass instruction is after school at the high school.
And her. Who wants to play the bass.
I think we’re about to find out who is in charge in this house. If you see a small girl with a huge instrument, you’ll know it’s not me.
Watch out for the Bass. That is the instrument I chose to play in middle school specifically because you did not have to buy/rent one for home and could practice at school in the morning. What that really means is you sit in a practice room with the other bass players wasting 30 minutes every morning because no one actually wants to practice and no parents/teachers are monitoring to make sure you do. The good news is that since your part in most songs is to just keep the beat you can get away without practicing much (I won’t tell Pie that part…)
But the thing is, we *do* have to rent one! Which means we have to transport between the lessons and home. So the answer is still (so far) no!