drumming

We had Purim carnival today. My husband was around, so that went smoothly. The kids got to eat ice pops in freezing weather while watching a bearded lady offer kisses for money. We went last year, too. A couple days ago, 7 yo asked me why are there police at the parade. I answered that they are there to direct traffic, so people can walk safely in the street. He goes, I thought they were there to prevent bad guys from hurting people in the parade. My bad.

This afternoon was 7 yo's first drumming lesson. He has been asking since the summer to take up drumming, but I could not imagine squeezing that into the schedule together with school and homework. I wanted to see some real interest and persistence. I also explained that learning an instrument will require practice. He agreed to it all. So I finally went ahead and found him a teacher. I also mercifully was able to leave the other two kids home, so it was just me, watching. He was very into it, all excited. He followed the rhythm, wanted to know the names of all drums/cymbals and what each pedal does and how does it all work. The teacher, a young guy in business school, was cool letting him experiment a bit and then teaching a bit. My son is a leftie, so learning how to start off with right hand does not come naturally to him. So there is a lot to work on here. Now I need to get him drum sticks for practice. His teacher said that he can practice drumming on the comforter or pillows (thank G-d, I am not ready to invest in a drum set yet or to put up with din). On the way back, he kept telling me how much fun it was and how excited he is about it. Now, he is not the one naturally overflowing with gratitude, but, when conditions are right, it happens.

I am grateful that I can give him this opportunity. I will need to work hard not to project my unfortunate encounter with piano practice onto his joy. I did not choose piano, we had one growing up and you could not waste a perfectly good piano without somebody practicing on it. The only problem was, I did not hear any mistakes that I made, so practice quickly deteriorated into torture. So I am cautions about musical instrument playing.

We are also on the second perek of megillah. He realized how long it is, and wanted to figure out how to cut perek short and still get a siyum. We read five pesukim, and then he stopped. I said that we could read some in the morning and some at night. He seemed to like that. I have to see whether the desire to finish the perek outweighs the resistance to reading.