Sunday night I did the Shared Word at our worship service. When I started writing Shared Word I felt like I didn't have anything to say, but by the time I was done two hours later I had four pages of stuff I was thinking about that was worth sharing. It was a surprising experience to sit down and let all these things floating in my head--Brene Brown's TED talk on vulnerability, Bill McKibbon's presentation at St. Thomas, and the reading from Luke about Jesus protecting and comforting his children like a hen gathers up her chicks--come together and become a coherent message about subversive faith.
My new band's first gig was a Variety Show at Honey in Minneapolis Tuesday night. Rachel and I borrowed instruments from another band and the keyboard sounded like strings and the guitar had a strap that made me feel like I was strumming my ankles, but it was so amazing to be on stage again. I couldn't hear what we sounded like through the monitors and we were definitely short on cowbell, but the audience had a great response and I think we communicated our songs well. We recorded 3 songs yesterday for a little demo, I will post them soon! We decided to name the band Ayd Mill Road after the little connector road between I-94 and I-35E south. It is still tucked away and only really travelled on by locals. It is probably the most controversial public land at the moment as there are so many ideas for it--trains, bikers and commuters all want to do something new with it. Who knows what will happen! All I know is I like the name--it is true to the history of the place. I feel so whole, so refreshed by the experience of performing with the band. I sound way better than I ever did singing solo. Rachel has a voice that matches mine in timbre, and her sound is so clean and soulful. I really love singing with her. She and Alex come up with amazing licks (Alex is on fiddle). We had a drummer, Adam, join us on Tuesday and he seemed interested in playing with us again. After the show the organizer of the Variety Show told Alex, "I really want to play bass in your band!" So it seems we may have a new bassist, too! I was flattered he was that impressed he immediately volunteered to join us.
We have one more Variety Show in the near future. Tonight at 7 p.m. at Living Waters in Minnetonka we will play a short set of 3 songs. I am very excited my in-laws Dan, Aubray and Susan will be able to join us as well as Wesley and William! The boys have heard plenty of us already in rehearsal but it will be a new thing to see Mommy on stage. I prepared William for the day with dinosaur play this morning. The Mommy, Daddy and two brother dinosaurs drove in their car (a hardcover book) to the drumming class. Then they came back, took a nap, and left for Dan and Aubray's house. Then they went to see Mommy perform and all the dinosaurs clapped. He thought it was great fun.
This week was also Empowerment Week for Wesley. He is getting more and more anxious to go and see and do. He was frustrated and cried for a couple days because when he would try to scoot forward he would actually end up going backwards. It was terribly disappointing. Lately, though, he does this rolling-climb-crawling thing that is definitely not the shortest distance between A and B, but it gets him there. He can travel at about 1 foot per minute. Go Wesley!
William is learning about all he can do with his growing language skills. His latest phrase is, "Don't do that!" He whipped that out for the first time after I turned left on a *pink* light. I was waiting for a break in the on-coming traffic which never came so I had to turn to get out of the intersection. William loudly exclaimed from the back-seat, "DON'T DO THAT, MOMMY!" "Don't do what, sweetie?" I said innocently, knowing my guilt. "Don't do THAT, it's scary Mommy!" "Do you mean turning on the red light?" "Yeah. Don't DO that!" Okay, William, lesson learned. Who taught him traffic laws? Other times he has used the phrase include when I scolded Zac for playing a computer game (he sensed it was not a nice way to talk to each other). William is reminding me I need to set a good example, all the time. Darn it.
I am reading a book called Intentional Family by William Doherty. Doherty is one of my favorite authors for books on raising kids, being a couple and a family. One of the things I have changed since reading the book is I have claimed the dining room table a sacred space. No reading, no phones, no devices at the table. I light a couple candles when we are sitting down to dinner and we all eat together, even Wesley. It usually means preparing lots of different foods at various temperatures and consistencies at the same time (I cannot tell you how often I stir a pot of soup and pump milk at the same time), but it's been very nice to eat together. I don't make William sit until we're all done eating, but he generally does try at least a bite of every dish. And, last night, Wesley even ate the same dinner as us (ground up, of course)! It was lentil stew (see picture below).
Next week I will be busy presenting on Early Childhood Music Education to a couple of different E.C.F.E. classes. That means William and Wesley will get to go to E.C.F.E. four times next week! It will be like half-day preschool or daycare. A big change for us, but I am excited. I am looking forward to talking to other parents about how to encourage their children's musical development. William is playing drums and piano and singing a lot these days. I read him a lot of nursery rhymes and sing him the nursery rhyme songs. He pages through the book and recites and sings the ones he recognizes by the picture. He assumes all books must have songs and pages through our library, singing away. The other day he took out several of my three-ring-binders from grad school and played "church," just like we do at the Community of St. Martin. There are never any boring moments around this house.
My budding musicians already eager to play!
I love this new bib from IKEA. It's a smock, really.
Okay, you win.
Wesley was rolling around trying to reach this little frog. I went to put William to bed and by the time I came downstairs Wesley had zonked out, prize in hand.
He is singing from a book. Behind him, you can see the rest of our library pulled out, too.
Sometimes we all need a little hug.
These kids are in action!
Wesley eats soup with us!
Umm...milk please?
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