Mr. Daddy had to travel for work.
Momma had a discount coupon burning a hole in her email.
And their boy has got the rhythm, got the beat, and he can’t stop it.
Cue a music lesson, an impromptu stop at the store, and one very happy (and crowded) little boy riding home with a full size drumset.
Pretty much every single person who saw that picture told me I was out of my squirrel-loving mind.
And then I got that set home and thought, “self, you are out of your squirrel-loving mind”.
Because if you’ve never put together a drumset before, you really ought to treat yourself to that experience sometime. Make sure you throw in a deliriously impatient 7-year old randomly pounding on whichever drum you are trying to attach and smashing cymbals 2” from your hearing-aid.
But I need to backtrack a bit.
The teacher started the lesson off with the best part of drumming.
Boog was ENTHRALLED.
It was all going swimmingly when he pulled a classic Boog stunt. The teacher was bent over him tapping out the beat with him in unison.
When Boog had completed the rhythm successfully, he deigned it a perfect time to celebrate.
Completely forgetting the poor man directly in his line of fire, he threw his arm up in victory and twirled his drumstick.
Right in the poor guy’s face.
You know when you put a card in a bike wheel…? It was kind of like that except it was a nose vs. drumstick.
~
Once we realized the teacher wasn’t going to flunk him over that – I made an unplanned detour to ensure that the drumstick craziness could continue at home.
And after setting up a full-size set of drums in the living room… I let Boog go to town on them. I may or may not have secretly been hoping our horse-beating neighbors were enjoying the music too.
Let’s just say that the cymbals are kind of a pain to fix when your kid does this to them. Fourteen times.
Umm yeah… they’re not supposed to look like that.
Over the next week, we had a parade of visitors – and without fail, every single adult grimaced when they walked in to see this.
“Drums?!?! Are you crazy?!?!”
(which is a highly ridiculous question to ask me if you’ve ever read my blog)
It was so very easy to smile conspiratorially with Boog and say,
“If not a deaf mom, who would let their kids learn to play?”
You know, the deafness thing can be really un-fun most days. I miss 90% of what goes on around me simply because some sounds you cannot lipread. But of all the things I miss, music was a brutal loss.
My entire family (and much of Mr. Daddy’s) is musically inclined. After I lost my hearing at age four, I grew up with my sister and mother singing harmony. I watched, knowing the words but mouthing them.
It was a happy thing to realize that Boog had a love of music. And could pick up a beat. Happier still to realize we could both enjoy percussion.
It shakes the house, that big bass drum. The snare drum takes a fair beating most days. And the tom-tom send thumps through the floor.
And oh the drumstick twirling. I could watch that for days.
He plays with a crazy grin (and even shares his sticks with those same adults who said Mommy was insane). Our house is full of joyful noise right now, and I really love that the silver lining to this deafness is that my boy can enjoy this.
And Mr. Daddy? You’ll catch him geared up like this:
Did you let your kids play loud instruments?
Did others think you were crazy?
.