Weekend

Good News:  I got up at the very decadent hour of 10:30am.
Bad News:  From that moment on all I've done all day is run around like crazy.

These two goofs had their last basketball game today.

Before that, though, Baylee and I drove the five or so houses down the road to pick up Rachel, so I could take them both to the game.  Baylee hopped out of the car, started to run up to Rachel's door, and promptly tripped over a rock or something and fell flat out on the ground.  She came back to the car in tears, bruised, and bloody, which meant we had to go back home to get her cleaned up.  Then I had to drive to the store to buy band-aids, because, of course and like always, we were out.  Finally a half hour later we were back in the car for "Driving to Basketball ~ Take 2."  They missed most of the practice/warm up time beforehand, but what are you gonna do?

Oh, yeah, and I survived Tomb of Desolation last night.  They were all very nice, polite boys, and easy to have over (other than the noise level), because they stayed in that room for the most part.  About the only thing I did was give them a bunch of tacos a couple hours in.  I will say this, though:  4 teenage boys + a warm, enclosed area + tacos + actively playing instruments for hours on end = a room that smelled like the reptile exhibit at the zoo by the time all was said and done.

To give them credit, considering this was their very first rehearsal they sounded pretty good!  They have three songs, which they wrote themselves.  Here's a little bit of one...

   

Edited to Add:

Can I cry yet?

Books and Bands

Baylee happens to be reading a lot of really great books right now.  For school she's reading a biography of Mother Theresa called Theresa of Calcutta and a biography of William Carey called William Carey:  Obliged to Go.  Both of those are connected to her study of the Eastern Hemisphere with our literature-based curriculum, Sonlight.  We're on India right now.  At the same time her reading class with Sonlight has her going through Around the World in 80 Days.  Finally, on her own, just for fun, she's reading Lord of the Flies.  I love that she loves to read!

Well, tonight is going to be loud.  Drew and three friends around his age, all boys, formed a heavy metal band, and they named it...umm...sigh...Tomb of Desolation.  My response to him was, "Really?  That's the name you're going with???"  It is, apparently.  They're all coming over to practice for several hours.  My prayer is that none of the neighbors calls the police on account of the noise.  I know we have that soundproof room, but it's not a miracle-worker.

Related aside:  Do you ever have moments in life when you look around and think, "This is NOT how I imagined things being?"  I never in a million years thought I'd be worried about being that neighbor, because my long-haired son is in a heavy metal garage band.  Ever.  I still can't really believe it.  I'm way too Dutch for this, and we do not make waves.

One More Quick Music Thing...

Drew and Baylee are writing a song together, and it's pretty good!

Couple Little Things from the Past Week

Using "Flight of the Bumblebee" as a metronome exercise...

Baylee's teacher gave her her first song to learn!

Take 2

I didn't mention this when we first got the email (this past Thursday, I think), but Drew needs to redo a large section of his video audition.  Come to find out...and this explains why so many kids from the Seattle school have been chosen over the years...those videos don't automatically get sent along to the national judges.  First Zeke watches them.  If he's not completely happy, then the student is told to redo whatever isn't good enough.  In fact, we just found out that other schools haven't even started the whole process yet.  The Seattle SoR makes the students start early just so that they have time to correct issues.

All that to say:  Drew has to completely start over with one of his songs.  It's not the right choice, as it doesn't showcase his ability as much as it should.  (Luckily it's not the "Trilogy Suite" piece.  That one's fine.)  To be honest, in the back of my mind I had wondered about that and so did Mike, and Mike even mentioned his concern to Drew, but Drew felt confident and went ahead with it.  Doh.

Anyway, after school today he's going to start refilming.  This time he's doing a song that David, his first teacher, taught him years ago.  It's called "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix. 

Today in the Front Yard

Paul

Today Paul came to our house with a bathrobe, slippers, and a pipe.  It's his 1950's-father-of-the-house costume.  (His family watches a lot of old TV shows.)  I just love that kid.  He's unabashedly himself. 


Posing with the Wall Street Journal...

He has to wear an eye patch for a couple hours every morning, which is why you can only see one of his eyes here.

More Weekend

I forgot that I took this picture of the girls yesterday...

I was pretty proud of them, actually.  They had to set up everything that they were going to sell, be responsible with money, use the stove to make hot dogs, use the popcorn machine to make popcorn, and then clean up at the end.  Not bad for a couple thirteen year olds!  Not to mention, they did almost double the amount of sales that the concessions stand usually does.  Maybe people just liked their cheerfulness.

Weekend

We've had a busy weekend so far.  (If you think I'm the kind of person who loves always going, going, going, you'd be wrong.  I REALLY wish I could have a whole string of weekends where all I did was hang around the house reading a book and watching old episodes of some dumb show.)  It's been fun stuff this weekend, though.

On Friday night Baylee and I went to the cheap theater, The Crest, with some friends to see a kids' movie called Big Hero 6.  I wasn't expecting much and was happily surprised.  That's a great movie!  I recommend it.

Also on Friday Drew had a friend named Gavin, who plays bass and drums, over.  The two boys holed up in our soundproof room for 5 hours making music.  I gave them pizza, pop, and chips, and then didn't see them much again...although we heard them.  (It's not totally soundproof.)  They had a lot of fun.

Today Baylee and Rachel worked from 9am to 5pm in the kitchen at church.  The church runs a concession stand in there during the basketball season, and all money goes toward youth missions.  Baylee and Rachel had to take a turn as part of their responsibility toward their summer mission trip.  (They'lll be doing VBS for a church up in the mountains.)  Anyway, they worked very hard all day, not to mention playing in their own basketball game, so in a few minutes we're going out as a family, with Rachel, for pho.

Zach worked today, as he does most Saturdays.  When he got home he said, "I think I'm gonna go ride my bike," because it was beautiful and sunny out...sweatshirt weather.  I apologize to my friends and family in the Midwest...but then he laid down on the couch in front of the TV and didn't get up again.  Poor guy.  He's tired.



This is a short video I took of Drew and Gavin playing together last night.  I just videoed from outside the door...

Drew has a drum playing friend over. Together they're very noisy.

A video posted by @sueinwa on Feb 20, 2015 at 9:02pm PST

Another Kid

Thinking about Dawn made me remember another kid from my childhood...

The first day of 6th grade I noticed a girl in my class who was new to the school.  She was really short, her name was Char, and she was extremely dirty.  I'm talking about weeks or maybe months of caked-on filth.  (Looking back, the 70's/80's were a weird time.  A child like that could show up to school and nobody would be alarmed enough to look into it.)  Anyway, I had kind of a "pick up the strays" mentality, and so I befriended her.  Actually, what I did was I asked her if she wanted to come to my church's kids' club with me on Wednesday nights, and she readily agreed.  We started picking her up from her house (which was a hovel) once a week and taking her to our church.

One time one of the girls from church invited a bunch of us over for a birthday slumber party, and she included Char.  My mom came up with a plan:  Char would come over to our house early, and then I would "decide" that we should each have a bath before we went.  That was, I'm sure, the first bath Char had had in a very long time.  Also, my mom bought her a 6-pack of new underwear and some flannel pajamas, so she'd have clean clothes to wear at the party.  The reason I remember that it was a 6-pack is that Char put on every pair at the same time, one over the other.  To this day I don't know why she did that.

Tuesday

Sunset last night, taken from the car during a red light...

So yesterday Drew and I had a...not argument exactly...more like an irritated conversation about how he wants to be left alone to do his school work without me always directing him.  In other words, he wants to be treated more like Baylee.  The thing is, he's not the self-starter that his sister is, and I often end up having to prod him forward.  Anyway, I agreed and left him to it today.  I kid you not, it took him a half hour to find his school stuff! I'm talking about the school stuff that has been kept in the same place for YEARS.  Lord, give me strength.

(In his partial defense, he's very organized when it comes to music.  One time we were on our way to a gig, and I said to him, "Did you remember picks?"  He replied something like, "Mom, I'm trying to remember things like key signature changes.  I've got picks under control.")

This morning I remembered something I haven't thought of in years.  When I was a kid my best friend, Dawn, lived right across the street.  We played together pretty much every day and went to school together through 8th grade.  At that point my family moved away and I lost touch with her.  Years later, when we were both adults, she sent me a letter.  (Actually, she looked up my parents and sent them a letter addressed to me, and they passed it along.)  She wrote it to thank me for something I was never aware of in all the time we had been friends.  That is, she said she was grateful to my family and my home for being a safe place for her, one that was whole and normal, that had rules and love and stability.  She said that back in that time when she lived across the street she was secretly being abused by her alcoholic stepdad, and our home was a haven for her.  She said that sometimes, when things were really bad and she was scared, she would come over, but not even knock on our door to tell us she was there.  Instead, she'd just quietly sit on our back porch.  We never knew.

Pics

Valentine's Day flowers...

Zach and his friend, Robbyn...

(Zach bummed around with a couple friends, Robbyn and Kian, on Saturday night.  One of the things they did was get frozen yogurt, and that's where that picture was taken.)

Thoughts

Over the last year or so  I've had something percolating in the back of my mind, and then today I had a conversation with someone that solidified it.  It's this:  Now that I'm in my 40s, I'm finally figuring out that sometimes people are just...how do I put this?...horrible.  Or, at least, they have horrible moments.  You might be thinking, "Really?  You're just now realizing that?"  Well...yes, in a way.  Actually, what I'm coming to understand is that people can be mean and can treat me badly, and it's not always my fault and it's not always something I can fix.   It's just them.  They're acting like jerks.

(By the way, before I go any further, Mike and I are fine.  This isn't directed at my family or friends or really anybody.)

I've gone so many years of my life believing that if somebody is an ass and it's directed at me, I must've done something wrong.  I must deserve it somehow.  What I'm learning is that it's a form of COTUS (Center Of The Universe Syndrome) to always put the blame (or at least some of the blame) on myself.  It's freeing to be able to disengage.

All that to say:  I like my 40s.  I like being able to see someone acting badly and to be comfortable enough with myself to be able to say, "Not my problem." 

Wait...What?

Last night I finished The Giver, thought the ending was a little strange...kinda too convenient...and then I went to bed.  Today I was minding my own business, cleaning the house, thinking about this and that, and suddenly and without warning I realized what that ending actually means.








..............spoiler alert..............









..............don't scroll down if you don't want my take on it.............








They die!  Jonas and the baby were overcome by cold and they slipped away, but right before that happened Jonas started to hallucinate about the sled and the house and the Christmas lights.

I'm so sad.

This and That

Have you ever read The Giver, by Lois Lowry?  It was written in 1993, before dystopian society books were as popular as they are now.  The book starts out in a community that's extremely regulated.  Men and women are paired by a committee, but only with people who are their perfect match.  After awhile they can apply to be given babies to raise, one boy and one girl.  (They don't have the babies themselves.)  Besides all that, everyone in society has duties and jobs, depending on their age.  At 12 years old children are given job assignments, which they have for life.  Also, they all take special pills to suppress any strong feelings or urges.

To get to the point, and this is going to sound weird, there's a little part of me that likes certain aspects of that community.  Mainly I just really dig the highly organized, clean aspect of it.  I'm a freak, aren't I?

Baylee braided her hair the other day and she looked pretty darn cute.

   
(She's been expressing some regret lately about the blue/green hair.  She said that once it's grown out she's never going to dye it a weird color again.  Live and learn, I guess.  lol)

This conversation happened today...

Me:  I'm headed to the store.  Do you want me to pick up something for you to give to your girlfriend for Valentine's Day?
Drew:  Yeah, okay.
Me:  Like some chocolates?
Drew:  Sure.
Me:  Should I get a card, too?
Drew:  Alright.

[eye roll]  I'm raising a real Casanova over here.

I don't know if I mentioned this here, but recently Mike happened to be in the area where Zach's work is (Actually, now Mike's in that area all the time, since he moved to a different Boeing site. The new Boeing site is right by the airplane gear shop where Zach is.) and so he stopped in.  One of the men working there, an older guy, made sure to tell Mike what a great guy and hard worker Zach is, and how they're lucky to have him.  That was really nice to hear!  

It's Finished!

A week of blood, sweat, and tears occasional meltdowns, countless camera battery charges, and two songs I wouldn't mind never hearing again has culminated in this 4-minutes-and-36-seconds video.  You'll notice that Drew is wearing the same outfit through the whole thing, even though it was filmed over 7 days.  That was his idea, to give the impression that it was all done at once.  LOL  It meant that every single night I washed that t-shirt and those jeans, and he'd put them back on again in the morning.

PS:  I'm proud of him.

Bro and Sis

(Sorry if you're totally sick of hearing about this.  It's just that it's been sort of consuming for the whole house for the last few days.)

Today Drew asked Baylee to play the drum part of the 2nd song he's working on, just to help him out while he tried to get it all down.  She was totally excited to be playing real music with someone.  lol

More Audition

Okay, it's been six days, but he finally got it.  There were other times he got close...some that he even thought were the one, but then he's sit at the computer and watch himself, and pick himself apart, and pretty soon he'd decide that he needed to do it again.  And again.  And again.  And in case you were wondering, yes, he did have a couple meltdowns.

This video?  This one that he was finally happy with?  It's, like, Take 1072.  My head hurts, my nerves are frazzled, and my ears are numb.

Now he has about 2 1/2 days to get a second song figured out and recorded, and a little video of himself answering a set of questions.  Then he has to put it all together into one presentation.

Lord, give me strength to parent this kid through this. 

Also This Weekend...

This piece of this song has been played in our house hundreds of times over the last few days.  I'm not exaggerating.

I'll be honest with you guys, because Drew doesn't read here.  He's worried.  He chose different music for this stage of the audition, which he had a good reason for doing, but it means that he started almost from scratch.  To put it bluntly, he's struggling.  It's difficult music, and he needs to be able to play a one-minute piece of it flawlessly on video.  He can't do it, and he especially can't do it when the camera is on.

I don't know what's going to happen.  I'm not sure if he'll pull a miracle out and make it happen, if he'll change pieces, or if he'll give up.  I do know that time is ticking, and this is only one of the two songs he has to have recorded and sent in by Friday. 

Sunday

The play was this morning and it went well!  I was so incredibly proud of all those kids that I teared up a little at the end.  They really stepped up and gave it their all, and it turned out to be wonderful and a lot of fun.  Since I was sitting in the front row cueing kids in here and there, I couldn't video during the actual performance.  (And Mike couldn't do it, either, because he was running sound.)  I'm kinda bummed about that.  I do have a few pictures and videos that I took during the dress rehearsal, though.  They're not as cool, but they'll give you an idea.

All the kids at the dress rehearsal.

Baylee got to help lead worship for the service this morning!

A staring contest between Baylee and a little guy named T during some down time.  T won.

And here are little bits of the dress rehearsal versions of the songs that Baylee had a solo and a duet in.  They went better during the actual performance.  (Also, I forgot to even turn the camera on until Baylee and Molly's duet was pretty much over.  Oops.)

Vent

Something happened recently that left me going, "...Really???" and now I'm going to vent about it.

Without going into a lot of detail, it boils down to a parent not making their child take an obligation seriously.  When I talked to the parent and basically begged her to please have this child fulfill her responsibility, I was told, "Weeeell...I don't know.  [My daughter] is going to be very unhappy.  I'll try to talk to her, I guess."  A little while later the child did show up to do her duty, but she was sullen and rude, and she walked around saying to anyone who would listen, "Mrs. Harper is FORCING me to be here!  I should be able to do what I want!"

Sigh.  I'm just guessing here, but I think what happened was the mom let me be the bad guy.  Apparently it was my fault that the kid didn't get to go play with her friend, but instead had to stay and do a job.  And...whatever.  I can deal with that.  But I can't help but think that it was a big, wasted teachable moment.  It could've been a perfect opportunity to say to that child, "Listen, this is your responsibility.  You signed up for it and you have to follow through.  Period.  That's life."

I mean, haven't we all been there?  We get ourselves into situations that turn out to be more work than we thought or a pain in the butt or whatever.  We regret getting involved.  But so what?  People are counting on us now.  When that kid grows up is she going to be able to say to her boss, "I don't feel like coming in today.  I can do what I want!"?  No, she won't.  She might as well figure that out now.

Music Craziness

You know how sometimes they torture people by locking them in a room and then playing loud, discordant music?  That's my life right now.  Don't believe me?  A little while ago I secretly turned the camera on and stood in our dining room, and this is what I recorded.

In that video Baylee's in the TV room playing the drums and Drew's in the living room playing the guitar.  One's practicing for a lesson and the other for an audition, and they're both playing the same little piece of whatever they're working on over and over and over and over.  I'm this close to cracking and telling all of my secrets.

I haven't mentioned Baylee's lessons lately, but she's doing great!  She loves it and is putting in lots of time.  Her teacher told me this past week that he's really impressed with her, which is always nice to hear.

She let me record her a little bit.  Here she is going over an exercise...

And here's a "filler" she made up.  Her teacher, Michael, has her working on improv stuff right off the bat.

 

Thursday Night

We've had a can of Cheese Pizza Flavored SpaghettiOs in the cupboard for ages, because no one was that hungry.  Tonight, though, I missed supper, so I bit the bullet and ate the stuff.  Verdict:  Cheese Pizza Flavored SpaghettiOs taste exactly like regular SpaghettiOs.  Now you know.

(Along those same lines, there's a can of soup in our cupboard with the label taken off, and "Mysterie Flavor" written on it with a sharpie.  It's been there for years.  I think Drew's the culprit.)

Well, the musical I've been helping to direct for the last several months is finally happening on Sunday morning.  It's actually taking the place of the sermon.  (It does have a really good message.)  It's been a long, fun ride filled with me saying stuff like:

• No, your character is not a cat.  You're Queen Esther.  Stop meowing.
• Have you been practicing?
• Hey, slow down a little.  You need to give Job's family a chance to keel over.
• Does everybody know their lines?
• Smile, everyone!

It's weird that it's almost over!  I'll miss it.  If you think of it, pray for Baylee.  She's got a main speaking part, plus she's got a solo and a duet, and she's really sick today.  She's got a fever, chills, a sore throat, and body aches.  She has 2 days to get over it.

Audition News

Drew made it to Round 2 in the All-Stars audition process!  Now he's got a week and a half to put together a video submission.  Along with a note of congratulations and the rules for this next round, the music director of the Seattle SoR, Lori, wrote Drew a personal note cautioning him not to create his own (loosely based on the original) solo leads, as he has a tendency to do, but to follow the music exactly.  The judges will be looking for accuracy over creativity.  So...onward and upward, I guess!  We'll see what happens.


PS:  The other day I overheard two School of Rock dads talking about this audition and discussing the videos they were going to help their kids put together.  They made it sound like a professional undertaking, which was/is a little disheartening.  I'm planning on handing Drew our camera and tripod and letting him handle it by himself.  My job, as I see it, is to make sure his hair is brushed.  *shrug* 

 

The Family [Fill in the Blank]

I was privy to two different weird, but slightly related conversations today.  The first one happened because a friend on Facebook posted this gif:

Most of the comments under it were of the "Haha!  Right?" variety, but there was one woman who said, "My friend doesn't.  Google 'The Family Cloth'."  [Blink.  Rub eyes. Read again.]  Say what now???  Horrified, I googled it, and it's exactly what it sounds like!  And I can never unread that!   

Message to Penny Pinchers of the World:  Some things are worth buying.  Period.  Over and out.  Amen.

The second conversation happened while I was at the dentist's office.  I was stuck in the chair, and over my head the dentist and the hygienist where having a conversation about "The Family Bed" philosophy.  Apparently my dentist and her husband are advocates.  It got me thinking about how Mike and I were family bedders, too, only we were unwilling participants, and it was just with Baylee.  That kid would wait until about two in the morning, when we were the perfect victims, and she would sneak in next to me.  Every morning I'd wake up and there she'd be, and I'd have no memory of it happening.  Maybe you're asking yourself why she got away with this for...ahem...years on end.  Because she was our third child and we were tired.  Anyway, besides the obvious intrusiveness problem, it was also bad because our bed was so small.  We were sleeping on a full, which was barely big enough for the two of us, much less a toddler/preschooler/kindergartener.  (I told you.  It lasted years.)  Finally the night came when Mike actually got edged out, and he ended up landing on the floor.  He wasn't happy, as you can imagine, but Baylee, who was old enough to write at that point, smoothed it over the next day with this note (spelling and punctuation have been left intact):

Dear Mom and DaD

I am sore [sorry] for Getin in to yowr beD evre Dae.  I shod stae in my own beD.  I Love you and I dont wont DaD to fol off.

How can you stay mad at that?  PS:  She doesn't sleep with us anymore.

If I Ignore It Maybe It Will Go Away

Remember how, almost a year ago, I had trouble with a tooth?  Remember how it was causing pain on that whole side of my face, up to and including my ear?  And remember how I went to the dentist and they couldn't find anything wrong, and they told me it was probably a sinus problem?  Well, that "sinus problem" never truly went away.  It bothered me now and then for months (although never to the same degree as it did at first), but I just kept telling myself, "It's a sinus problem...It's a sinus problem..."  Finally, a few weeks ago, my gums in that area started to hurt.  I ignored it some more (Hey, it was just a sinus problem!) until a few days ago when a huge, disgusting lump appeared there.  Weirdly, considering it's horrible lumpiness, it wasn't that painful.  I mean, the lump itself hurt to the touch, but the tooth below it was basically okay, except for the occasional twinge.  Anyway, I finally called the dentist this morning.  I hate going to the dentist, so I was totally willing to have the appointment be sometime in the future, but they were able to see me almost right away.  I went during my lunch break and found out I need a root canal and a crown.  Sigh.  I'll be getting that done tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning.

Oh, and umm...




This next bit is TMI, so don't scroll down if you don't want to be grossed out.






You sure?





Last chance.





The dentist said that the reason I haven't been in terrible pain is because the abcess (ie that lump) is draining on its own into my mouth.  Awesome.  That explains the taste I've had in there for the last three days or so.

On a slightly related note, my desire to ignore/put off this issue reminds of the time I was in the hospital in labor with Drew.  The doctor and nurses were quietly hanging around the room, waiting while I went through the contractions, until the moment I said, "I think I might almost be ready to push."  Holy cow, those were magic words causing everyone to burst into action.  Lights were aimed at me, a cart was rolled up, and people jumped into position.  Alarmed, I called out, "I said almost!"  (They ignored me and so did my body.  Drew was born a few minutes later.)