October 22, 2004
One great way to limit your time on the computer is to move the office chair upstairs to your sewing table, and then have to sit on the top of a stepladder when you're surfing the Internet. I don't know what the opposite of "ergonomic" is, but if you look it up in the dictionary, there's a picture of me typing this entry.
Anyway, that's beside the point, which is that we're back from Kindermusik, at which Zeke did a number of extremely cute things, which I will now share with you.
First, when we all assembled in a circle and started singing the "Hello" song, Zeke surprised us all by singing along, mostly in key and with the right words. Everyone kind of looked at him, and the teacher congratulated him for singing along. So, that was cool.
Today's musical instrument was the glockenspiel. The teacher only had two keys in it, and she was using it to demonstrate the concept of "triads". (Music-type people will know what this means. If you don't, it's OK, it basically just means a particular type of chord. If that doesn't make sense either, don't sweat it. Just envision small children banging on two keys of a glockenspiel. Which is like a xylophone.) We were singing a song that only used the two notes, which the teacher played alternately, to give the kids a sense of what a "triad" is. Not that they were expected to understand the concept of "triad"; it's just that triads aren't super-common in Western-style music, and the idea is to introduce them to a new kind of sound.
So after we all sang the song and the teacher played the glockenspiel, it was time for the kids to play. The teacher asked, "Who wants to be first?" and Zeke yelled, "ZEKE!" and ran over, but one of the other little boys beat him to it. So Drew had a turn at the glockenspiel, and the teacher helped him play first one note, then the other, while we all sang along. Then it was Zeke's turn (at last -- oh, how trying it is for a two-year-old to have to wait thirty seconds for his turn) and he managed to play the notes in an alternating sequence with no help from the teacher. I felt proud.
After his turn and subsequent round of applause, the teacher asked him if he could hand the stick to another child. He thought for a minute and then (of course) handed it to Savannah, who is very cute and also currently Zeke's best friend. He taught her how to drum on the teacher's toy box during one part of class. If only I'd had a camera.
Anyway, Savannah had her turn and then she handed the stick to Olivia, but drama ensued, as Zeke ran up and grabbed the stick out of Olivia's hand! Oh, no! I intervened and told Zeke that that was not very nice and he should give the stick back to Olivia. So he came over and kissed Olivia on the top of the head -- awww! -- but kept the stick. Nice try, Zeke. I took the stick gently away from him, without much protest, and Olivia finally had her turn.
All in all, a successful Kindermusik. Frankly it was just nice to see some of the other parents running and chasing their kids and trying in vain to convince them to come back and participate in class instead of punching their own images in the mirror, for a change.
Posted by Jan at October 22, 2004 10:22 PM