Tag Archives: children

The Very Worst Pianist

The building was crawling with parents and children who had all come to that one place on that one day for an annual event that tests the skills of young pianists like my oldest daughter.

It was our first year there, and we were lost.

Insufficient maps sent us weaving through the building like ants carrying sacrificial bits of sheet music in our hands. Fragments of scales and bits of well-rehearsed compositions floated up from the rooms while everyone waited in crammed hallways for the next child to play.

I had no idea there were so many musically inclined children in all of Washington. “This piano thing is really catching on,” I whispered to Faith as we squeezed our way through jutting elbows and perfumed women and clusters of children who wished they were still in bed.

She nodded anxiously, hugging her red music folder to her chest.

I grabbed her around the shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “It’s going to be fine,” I said, even though I had no idea why room 5B wasn’t next to room 5A and it was very likely she was going to be late to her first event.

“Yep,” she said simply.

She was one brave girl, and I was proud of her. I figured I was the proudest mother of all the proud mothers in that place, and some of those women were acting like the mom of Mozart.

I was not the mom of Mozart, and I knew it. I was the mom of the very worst pianist in that place.

Yep. The very worst.

The night before, and not a moment sooner, I realized how unprepared Faith was for this competition. She sat on her bed, shaking with sobs, and told me all about it. She didn’t have her music memorized. She couldn’t play her classical piece well, even with the music, and the contemporary piece needed so much work, it wouldn’t be ready to play if she had a whole week to practice.

“It can’t be that bad,” I said. “Why don’t you play them for me.”

She did, and it really was that bad.

It was so bad, she couldn’t get through a single line without a mistake or ten. Halfway through the second piece, just when things were getting interesting, she broke down and started crying all over again.

“See?” she said.

I did see. I saw how I had completely failed to help her with her piano. I saw how I had been so distracted by house repairs and a kitchen remodel and all the work involved with moving that I had totally neglected her upcoming piano competition.

In fact, that was the first time I’d listened to her play her pieces. It was the first time I had sat down with her and looked at her music and made sure she was ready. Did I know she was playing a song called Skeleton Bones? Nope. Did I know she had to brush up on her scales and chords because she was going to be tested on them? Nope.

I had totally blown it.

To complicate things, she had blown it too. She had failed to practice even though her teacher reminded her every week. She had rushed through her pieces and hadn’t worked on the tricky parts because the weather has been grand and it’s much more fun to play outside.

And she doesn’t like scales.

“We messed this up,” I admitted.

“I know!” she sobbed. “I feel terrible about it!”

I felt terrible about it too. My daughter’s eyes were red and her face was splotchy and she was crying uncontrollably on her bed because of it. But there wasn’t much that could be done about it with less than twelve hours to go before the competition.

“I think you have two choices,” I told her. “You can stay home, and we’ll try to be better prepared next time, or you can go and do your best.”

She sniffled loudly.

“Unfortunately, your best is not very good right now.” I thought it was best to be honest. “You’re probably going to make a lot of mistakes. You know that. But you can go and play what you can, and maybe you can even learn something.”

Faith nodded. “I think I’ll go,” she said, and promptly started crying again.

“You don’t have to,” I said, secretly hoping she would change her mind. I mean, it was really, really bad. I could just imagine her bursting into tears in front of the judges and suffering permanent psychological damage because of it.

“No, I’m going to go,” she said, letting the tears stream down her face.

It was one of those instances when I wished I could say, “It’s not going to be as bad as you think.”

But I couldn’t say that.

So I hugged her instead and said, “You know, Faith, very few people get to be the best. If you think about it, most people are just average. They’re just okay.

“And every once in a while, you get to be the worst. Every once in awhile, you get to be the person who makes everyone else look good.”

She nodded.

“You’re just going to have to be the best person-who-makes-everyone-else-look-good you can be.”

Faith grinned. “I will.”

The next day, she came out of the first competition and smiled. “Well, that didn’t go very well,” she laughed. “I don’t think I’ll get a ribbon.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay,” she shrugged, and I marveled at her, this kid who could mess up with more grace than her mother ever could.

“It was actually kind of fun!”

We went through the day like that, with me waiting in the hallways with other parents, listening to the sounds of perfectly-played pieces and knowing it was not my kid playing those notes. Every once in awhile, a dissonant sound was played, or a child tripped across the keys and fell flat, and all the parents in the hall looked at each other and thought, “I hope that’s not my kid.”

Except for me. I smiled and thought to myself, “Don’t worry, everyone. That’s my girl.”

Faith, playing at her first piano recital

At the very end of the day, I was allowed to go in with her and listen to her play her final piece. The child right before her was a maestro. His fingers looked like they were made of ivory. Faith leaned over and whispered loudly, “Mom! He’s really good!”

Then it was her turn. She sat down at the bench and began to play, but it wasn’t long before the music was lost and she couldn’t remember what came next. She growled at the keyboard in frustration and punched at keys that were not the right ones.

We’ve gotta work on the growling, I thought.

Deep inside, my stomach flipped. I couldn’t breathe. I thought about my mother-in-law, who paid for all of her lessons, and my sister-in-law who had been teaching Faith for nearly two years. I thought about the mother of another one of my sister-in-law’s students who was sitting in the same room with us listening to my daughter botch the whole thing, and I looked at my daughter who was in serious jeopardy of bursting into tears and I did what most moms would do: I thought about myself.

My failed parenting was shining through loud and clear, and I wanted to sink right into my folding chair.

Just then, Faith managed to finish the piece with one triumphant chord that mostly sounded right. Everyone exhaled and clapped respectfully.

We all stood up. I turned to say something conciliatory to Faith, but she was already running up to the child who played before her. “You played really, really well,” she said to him, her face shining. “I mean, really well. You did a great job.”

The other boy look surprised. He couldn’t say the same thing back to her so he mumbled, “Thank you,” and looked down at his hands. Faith skipped back to my side. “He was so good,” she said.

For the hundredth time that day, I marveled at Faith, a child whose first thought after a performance like that was how well the other kid played, and how much she couldn’t wait to tell him so. She was not proud of her own performance, but she wasn’t ashamed of it either. She knew she had done her best, such as it was, and that was good enough for her.

It certainly was good enough for me, although it stunned me to see something good in her that I find it so lacking in myself.

“I’m proud of you,” I said, “really, super-duper proud of you. I couldn’t be more proud of you if you played all your songs perfectly.”

“Hum!” she sang happily.

“You’re the best person-who-makes-everyone-else-look-good I’ve ever seen.”

She smiled.

“I just wish I knew where you learned it.”

“Um–from Dad.”

Ah. That explains it.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 41

Better With You Here

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The plan for the day improved greatly with one phone call Jeff made this morning. He needed to pick up some building materials from a friend, a friend who happens to have three giant trampolines lined up in a row in his backyard. The first one is directly under his roof.

You have no idea how fun it is to have three trampolines lined up in a row just inches from the corner of a roof unless you’ve tried it, or unless you’re under the age of ten and can imagine it.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Gary said when Jeff asked if he could drop by. “You can come on over as long as you bring the family and stay for some lemonade.”

It was settled.

The only trouble was, I’ve been fighting some fierce kid-germs, and they’re still “winning me.” I thought about this as Jeff announced the plan to the kids.

“Yahoo!” they screamed. “We can jump on the trampolines!”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go,” I said through my stuffy nose. “I’ll probably have to stay home.”

“Even better!” one of the children shouted gleefully.

The words sliced through the air and made a direct hit.

Even better.

Even better if you don’t come.

Even better without you.

It was said carelessly because even very small children can toss heavy words about as if they weigh nothing at all, as if they mean nothing at all.

But they meant something to me, and I felt myself bleeding out right there in the middle of the kitchen because those words cut deep.

Those words were not the words of my child; they are the words of my Enemy.

They are dark words, and deep like the depths of the ocean. When all the house is asleep and the moon brings in a tide of self-doubt, I feel myself getting sucked into the currents and drowning into that ocean. It tells me that I am not enough, that I have messed it up, that I am not cut out for this. It gurgles up in me and I hear the rush of it in my ears: they all would be better off without me.

My child does not know that I have heard these words before, and often, in my own heart and my own mind. He does not know how they leave me clinging to the rocks and chanting to myself, “It is not true. It is not true.”

This child does not know how it cuts me to hear in broad daylight the words I fight in the dark.

Those words hang in the air between us and for an awful moment, I am swept out to sea by a sudden wave and I cannot breathe. It is true. All my failings, all my shortcomings, all my inadequacies: every single one of them is true. They would all be better off with someone else.

But wait…

They are not true, and they are not the words of my child. They are the words of my Enemy. I come up for air, grab hold of a bit of craggy rock, and see it for what it is. How dare my Enemy use my child’s lips to utter his lies! How dare he tread on that holy ground.

Because this calling is not my own. I did not bear these children out of my own desire, nor was I given them out of my own goodness or ability. A thousand women with empty arms deserved this more. I know it. I think of Mother’s Day, looming large on my calendar, and I weep for them because I feel so undeserving of the gift they desire. Why me? Why not them?

It is a whirlpool that easily sucks me in. I can drown in my inadequacies and I can grieve the probability that another mother could do it better, but it doesn’t erase the fact that God gave me a name I did not earn.

He called me mother.

It is a grace-calling. And grace-callings are the hardest ones to answer, I find, because they never-ever-never-ever fit right.

Because if it fit right, it wouldn’t be grace.

If it fit right, it wouldn’t leave me stumbling and tripping over my own mantle like some kind of misfit, or wrestling with doubts and uncertainties like a kid who can’t figure out how to put on her own dress.

If it fit right, I wouldn’t have to trust that God knew best, despite how I perform…

…despite what my kids think of me…

…despite the fact that I am impatient…

…and also selfish.

Despite the fact that I can’t get my arms in my own sleeves–despite all of it.

I was not called to be a mother because I was going to be good at it.

I was called to be a mother because God could make something good out of it, despite me.

I am wet and dripping, half-drowned and inglorious, yet God bends to whisper in my ear,

“It’s better with you here.”

I struggle to believe it.

It is better with you here because I AM the One who called you.

That is the truth I need to hear, and often, a truth that speaks in a whisper but shouts above the waves.

It is better with you here.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 41

I’m for Childhood

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I’m for skinned knees,

Grass stains,

Sweaty foreheads,

And Band-Aids.

I’m for ice cream drips,

And soggy cones,

For Popsicle stains,

And Icees.

I’m for campfires,

Sooty hotdogs,

Lightning bugs,

And stars.

I’m for blanket forts,

Bedtime stories,

And flashlights.

I’m for sleeping close.

I’m for swings under trees,

Daisy chains,

And dandelion fluff.

I’m for touching the sky.

I’m for wide fields,

Deep woods,

And All Things Scary.

I’m for adventure.

I’m for Good Guys,

For super-hero capes,

Stick-swords,

And muscles.

I’m for King of the Mountain,

Tag,

And Hide-n-Seek.

I’m for playing.

I’m for road trips,

And “You’re-on-my-side,”

And “He’s-looking-at-me,”

And “If I have to pull over…”

I’m for bicycles,

Going too fast,

And Down-Hill.

I’m for brakes.

I’m for climbing trees,

Apple picking,

And leaf piles.

I’m for pumpkins.

I’m for Grandma’s house,

Sleepovers,

And extra dessert.

I’m for being spoiled.

I’m for stuffed animals,

the Tooth Fairy,

Christmas stockings,

And wishes.

I’m for first snowfalls,

Soggy mittens,

And cocoa.

I’m for marshmallows.

I’m for freckles,

Sticky kisses,

And dimpled hands.

I’m for “I love you.”

I’m for rainbows,

Twirling umbrellas,

And puddles.

I’m for mud pies.

I’m for stomping.

I’m for skipping,

And running,

And flying.

I’m for imagination,

For new crayons,

Fresh paper,

And possibilities.

Crafting

I’m for discovery,

For turning over rocks,

Taking a leap,

Being brave.

I’m for newborn noises,

Kid conversations,

And questions.

I’m for naps.

I’m for growing.

I’m for new clothes,

Birthdays,

And missing teeth.

I’m for time—

For eternal days,

And days that go too quickly.

I’m for childhood.

100 Days of Motherhood, 40

DIY Disney Tie-Dye Shirts

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When I found out my kids were going to Disneyland, I knew I wanted to make them personalized t-shirts to help break the surprise.

I thought about doing something hand-appliqued, but who am I kidding? I did not have time for that.

Then I thought about doing a tie-dye shirt for each of the kids, but I wanted to keep myself on budget and I didn’t have dyes on hand. Also, I thought it would be hard to hide a tie-dye operation from the children.

That’s when I remembered a project I did with some kids I used to babysit. We made reverse tie-dyed shirts using bright t-shirts and bleach. I thought I could do a variation of reverse tie-dye to create personalized shirts for each of the kids.

First, I stopped at Michael’s craft store and picked up three t-shirts. They were out of most colors so I had to settle for neon. It felt so…’80′s. But I consoled myself with thoughts of the big ol’ bottle of bleach waiting for me at home.

Once the kids were in bed and I had threatened to take away all of their stuffed animals if they set foot downstairs, I got to work.

First, I created a Mickey Mouse template.

If you’re uncomfortable making a template on your own, just search for “Mickey Mouse silhouette” and you’ll find lots of printable options. I just didn’t want to to waste the ink.

Yes, I am that cheap.

I traced around the Mouse with a white crayon. You could use chalk or a fabric pencil if you have one on hand. But white crayons are in abundance around here because how often can you use a white crayon?

Next, I created my own bleach pen.

Bleach pens are basically bleach in gel form. You can get them at the grocery store in the laundry aisle.

But, I didn’t want to spend $3.50 on a bleach pen because I am my father’s daughter, and I have distinct memories of him telling the clerk at McDonald’s that it couldn’t possibly cost eight dollars to purchase hamburgers and water for a family of five.

Besides, I thought I could make my own for just pennies. It turns out, I could.

I had an empty plastic bottle with a tip–you know, the kind you might use for ketchup and mustard. I use mine for frosting cookies. Into that bottle, I poured about an inch of liquid hand soap and about a tablespoon of bleach. Swish, swish, swish, and wallah! Bleach pen.

I tested the bleach pen on a piece of cardboard just to make sure it was “gelled” enough. I wanted my bleach pen to be a little runny, just enough to give the t-shirts a paint-splattered look.

I slid a piece of cardboard in between the layers of each t-shirt so the bleach wouldn’t bleed to the back.

Finally, I traced around the crayon outline with the bleach pen.

I created a nice, fat outline. As you can see, the bleach didn’t bleed much, even though I didn’t mind if it did a little.

I actually had to create a “bleed” by dabbing the pen around a bit. I didn’t want it to look perfect.

Also, I wanted each shirt to look different, so I made splattered look on Jonathan’s shirt, and polka dots on Kya’s.

I wanted to create tiger stripes on Faith’s, but her shirt was WAY committed to being neon pink. I had to stop and make a stronger bleach slurry, but it barely touched the color on that shirt. The lines faded enough to give me an outline, so I decided I’d have to go back and add some glitter paint to try to make it stand out like the others.

As you can see, Faith’s Tiger Minnie is struggling because that hot pink is fierce.

Let the bleach pen work until the shirts are faded to the color you want. Remove the cardboard. It will look really cool and you will like it:

Bleach pen + cardboard = wood burned effect? Fabulous!

Rinse the shirts in the sink to carefully remove the bleach without getting it everywhere. Then, wash and dry the shirts. This is how Jonathan’s looked, straight out of the dryer. You can see the tie-dye look in the white.

Lastly, add any embellishments you’d like.

I had to add some glitter paint to Faith’s shirt because the lines were just too faint on her Minnie Mouse. I happened to have some fabric paint on hand so I just used what I had. Thankfully, it dried quickly because this girl was still working on these shirts on the day of departure. No stress! No stress!

I wanted the girls’ shirts to have bows on the ears so it would be clear they were Minnie Mouse shirts, not Mickey Mouse shirts.

Kya’s got an over-sized variegated ribbon on the ear.

It’s SO Kya.

I struggled a bit more with Faith’s because she doesn’t like bows on her person. She’s a tween, what can I say? Actually, she’s never been a fan of bows. She gets that from her mother. Ahem.

Also, I didn’t have a ribbon I liked. I wished I had something leopard-spotted, but I didn’t. I didn’t even have any black ribbon, which also would have looked neat. I dug around in my ribbon bin and that’s when I saw the perfect solution: a black zipper.

I separated the zipper and turned it into an edgy-bow. The teeth of the zipper looked great with the gold glitter paint I was forced to use on the tiger stripes. I added a little bling to the center and it was done.

While I didn’t love the way the tiger stripes turned out, I did love the bow. It was perfect for Faith–not too girly, not too grown-up.

All in all, I loved the way they came out. The kids said people stopped them at Disney to comment on their shirts. I should have written “Five in Tow” on the backs. Can you say “missed advertising opportunity”?

Here they are, ready to fly to Disney!

Nana, Uncle Fred, Aunt Lavonne, Faith, Jonathan, and Kya, ready to head to Disney!

Next time, I’ll make shirts for all of them!

The Final Disney Reveal

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Ring Pops–just another way to kick off a great adventure!

I almost didn’t dare to show my punk-face at church today after leaving the Disney series without a promised resolution. God-fearing Christians can forgive a lot of things, but you’d better not start a story about your kids and not finish it or there might be words.

Sure enough, I stepped in the door with my Bible in my hand and was accosted with mean words like, “So, when are you going to post the rest of the story?”

I see how it is. It’s all love, joy, and peace until your blog post is late by a day or three.

But I have to take responsibility for causing people to stumble because I did promise to tell–no, show–what happened when my kids finally figured out where their amazing surprise was going to take them. I was going to post a video so you could see their delighted faces for yourselves.

The only trouble was, I had no idea how to do that. The video I took was too long so I couldn’t use it without editing it down. Not only that, but it turns out I have am a terrible cinematographer. Probably I didn’t need to take so many shots of the tops of my children’s heads or the ceiling of the fifth floor of the Sea-Tac parking garage.

Also, I sound funny on film.

Worse than that, I’m totally inept when it comes to technology. I don’t even have a cell phone, and I’ve never sent a text message in my life. I’m pretty sure that means I’m Amish.

So, I promised a video grand-finale to my series but had absolutely no way of making good on that promise. I was banking on the fact that my husband, who sports a really cool prepaid cell phone from Walmart and just yesterday received a text message from a very nice company offering him a great price on auto insurance, could figure it out.

I was wrong.

For some reason, his video editing software did not like my shots of the Sea-Tac parking garage ceiling any more than I did, and it refused to work with that kind of lame material. He spent a good chunk of time on Friday trying to help me out, but it could not be done.

Meanwhile, the three older kids came bursting home a little after midnight, all sun-kissed from spending four days in a state that exports all their cloud cover to Washington. They were all “Disney-this” and “Disney-that” and “Why can’t we watch Aladdin?”

Because we’re Amish, that’s why.

Saturday was a work day at our house, but in between refinishing my cabinets and hearing all about the princesses that infest the Happiest Place on Earth, I managed to do something amazingly techie. See, there’s this new thing called YouTube. I hear it’s all the rage with kids these days. You can upload and edit your own home videos for all the world to see. And that is exactly what I did.

I was able to upload my video on YouTube, even though it took nearly two hours to do it and I was half afraid something would go wrong and I’d have to start all over. But it worked! I even managed to edit it down just a bit so it’s not eternally long and you don’t have to listen to my funny voice until you start to wonder how Jeff puts up with it.

The end result was this, a video of the final moments of the mystery adventure. As I told you in the last post, I had created gift bags for the kids that I had planned to have them open on the plane. But because they still hadn’t figured out where they were going even after we pulled into the airport and I gave them Mickey shirts to wear, I had to give them the gift bags in the hopes that the final clues would help them make the connection between all these clues and Disneyland!

You can see all the things that were in the bag here.

Meanwhile, the kids started unpacking their gift bags. Somewhere between the Buzz Lightyear puzzle and the autograph books, it started to sink in.

This is what happened:

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