Do you play the piano?

I wish you could all know my mom.  She says she doesn’t have guilt about anything because just she says she does the best she can.  I’m getting better, and for the most part I’m pretty ok with what we’ve decided as a family, but this is one question I keep coming back to, feeling really unresolved.  I feel like I’m the only mom in my circle of friends who doesn’t do piano for her kids.  I’m not exaggerating.  Either I don’t know you yet, or we aren’t friends, because I don’t know a single mom who doesn’t have piano lessons on the calendar.

I even flirted with it by buying a keyboard and having a young college girl come and teach my then 10 year old son once a week.  It was awesome.  It was $5 a lesson.  Then she moved.  I let it go.  In elementary school and jr. high we bought the kids a saxophone and trumpet.  We don’t even have them in our house any more.   The boys scraped by, weren’t invested; I should’ve handled things differently.

My philosophy was and is to put as much decision making as possible back on the kids.  Just like when the community soccer, football, and basketball flyers come home from school.  I ask the kids, “Do you want to sign up?” A non-committal reply.  “Oh no,” I’ve told them.  “We are not driving to 5 practices a week all over town and sitting through 3 games just so you can get a pack of Nutter Butters and a Capri Sun.  If you are not begging and dying to play, we’re not doing it.”  I let them choose, but they had to have some skin in the game and really want it.  I figured the same philosophy applied to piano.  But I’m wondering if I messed up.  I’ve asked over the years what they thought, were they interested.  No takers.  That was that, I thought.  They’ve spoken.

Everyone I know also has their kids in sports, dance, art lessons, karate, you name it.  I’m ok with that; I’m at peace with what our family is doing.  But I can’t seem to let go of piano.  It’s not even that I think of it all the time; I forget that I think about it until it comes to mind again.  I guess it’s pulled out of sleep when I witness an amazing performance by kids my kids’ ages, when I see the joy they get from having practiced and mastered such a skill.  Granted, I know some have a little extra gift, but all the kids I know are learning and getting it to some extent.  I feel like it is one skill—like learning to read—that maybe should just be part of their education.

I wonder if I’m being selfish.  At first it was mostly about the money, being right out of school with years of student loans, no extra money for lessons or a piano.  It’s still expensive in my mind, but isn’t it an investment?  Other families have made sacrifices.  They spend their afternoons and extra dollars investing in their children, giving them the opportunity they appreciated, didn’t have, or wished they had appreciated growing up.  These are moms who are dedicated and selfless in my eyes.  Am I taking something away from the future generations by making those same kids who practiced in their youth be the same ones as adults who have to constantly accompany musical numbers and who get pigeon-holed into music?  Am I taking the easy way out just because I don’t want to be bothered?

But when I’m honest with myself, it’s not really about not wanting to be bothered.  By choosing to be a mom, you are choosing to be inconvenienced and worked hard.  I’m all about investing in my kids: we make messes, they have free reign of the kitchen and workshops and sewing machines.  I forgo the luxury of quiet bliss while they could be occupied on their machines to engage them in creative play.  We have kids over, we have quiet time.  I do what I can to observe their strengths.  I say yes to what I think will make a difference, and I cut out or say no to what will just take us away from what matters most to us.  So I’m not opposed to being bothered, invested, or engaged.  But am I just telling myself that?

And what’s wrong with introducing it now?  That’s just it.  I’m not sure of my motivation.  Would it be just because everyone else is and I’m embarrassed because I slipped up and took the easy way out and now need to reconcile that?  Is it something I should’ve been doing all along, like reading to them at bedtime?  Or can I let it go and be ok with feeling that it’s just not for our family?  I can’t decide why it’s on my mind:  because it should be propelling me to make a move? Or because I feel guilty over a missed opportunity?  Neither one of us had piano lessons growing up.  I just never knew it was such a widespread thing until the past few years when I started realizing every  kid I knew at church did it.  So weird.   So I guess I question if it’s just cultural or if it’s part of the kids’ training we ought to encourage like scouting?

I’m more than a little regretful that I didn’t require this of my older kids like one family I know with 7 kids who just makes it part of being in their family.  Would that have been right for our family?  My saddest torment related to this is when my oldest muses that he wishes he would’ve stayed with the piano and really learned it.  You can see why it weighs on me and why I’m not exactly settled.  For now, we are looking into piano options for our youngest because she shows interest.  If you’ve read my post about sustainability, you’ll know that I don’t want to start something that I don’t see myself following through with.  Not sure what the best choice is in this case, but I apply the lesson I’ve learned repeatedly.  Opportunities come and go, some are lost but not all.  We have made choices for our family we deemed best given our philosophy and circumstances.  It’s not helpful to wonder “what if?” when there is no way to replay the past.  We do the best we can, we move on, we make corrections when necessary, learn, and do better next time.  In the case of the piano, the court’s still out.

Sustainability

When it comes to most habits, it feels more realistic for me to kind of be more like the tortoise than the hare. I suppose it’s simply because if I want a habit to stick with me throughout my life, I have to adopt the ones that I can manage even if they seem so small and insignificant that they’re hardly worth making note of.  One of my favorite sayings and mantras is “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”  I guess I just don’t like setting myself up for temporary success.  I believe in small life-changing habits that over time will have made a difference.  More so than binges of excellence that can’t be sustained long-term.  In my mind there’s no point in trying to change something that will eventually fade back to where I am right now.  I want improvement, but I’m ok with subtle over the long-haul.

I know myself.  Or at least I’ve come to know myself.  There have been some rough patches as I learned that I’ll never really be the kind of mom to put marbles in jars for kids’ good behavior.  It worked for a few days, but I couldn’t stick with it.  It felt so outside of who I really was—even though I longed to be that kind of mom.  I gravitate toward expectations, natural consequences, “Sure, you can go outside with your friends.  Just make sure you’ve done your weeding, dishes, and your room for the day.”  There.  That felt like me.  Unlike the little jars and star charts, I’ve been able to sustain this method for years because it felt like me right from the start.  Not clever, not magazine worthy, but real.

As a younger mom just figuring things out, I would’ve loved to have gone overboard at holidays and birthdays, just like the magazines and blogs and moms I’d heard and read about .  I remember crying and crying after my third baby was born early one April.  I tried to make Easter boxes out of paper and special symbolic cookies that Easter Eve that required smashing of nuts (for effect) and allowing them to rise in the oven to become hollow by morning when she was maybe 2 weeks old.  Todd was on-call.  I was knee-deep in thank you notes, dealing with visitors and clothing (new gifts, boxed up pieces that needed to be assessed, as well as just regular laundry for a family of five).  I also decided it would be a good idea to travel with everyone three weeks after she was born and fly back home alone with my boys ages 3 and 5 and the baby arriving home at 1 a.m.  I cried to my mom during those first few weeks, so embarrassed that I had been prideful enough to think I could handle and afford a third child.  I was so ashamed to have thought I was strong enough; I thought I should’ve known myself better.  I wasn’t (and am still not) a kid person.

But what great data!  I learned that I am not a magazine-worthy mom.  I can’t (because I don’t enjoy it, it doesn’t feel like the real me) go overboard on Christmas, for instance, and make all sorts of fancy traditions that cause more stress than joy.  I choose sustainability instead.  So we’re simple.  We make and decorate sugar cookies, we see the lights, we go to the Stroll, we have the same breakfast and dinner every year, we read the Christmas story and watch a movie together, we exchange family gifts.  That’s the backbone of our Christmas.  I know it’s not anything to boast about on a blog, but it’s stuck with us for almost 20 years.  To me, that’s success because we’ve truly created bullet points that are realistic for our family.

Same philosophy with diet and exercise.  I’ve never been the kind to diet because I know myself well enough to know it would only be temporary.  I’d never last.  I’ll never give up desserts, bread, or See’s candy completely.  But I know myself enough to know to freeze the See’s, that I should drink more water, that I can easily make more vegetable soup and can handle having salad with most dinners.  I SO admire folks who have lost like 100 pounds in a very short amount of time. But I almost feel their depression when it sometimes comes back.  I have friends who lose weight so slowly that I don’t even notice.  But when they reach their goal they can say they’ve lost 30 pounds!  To me, that is sustainable because it’s been a series of life tweaks taken slowly and steadily.

I hate running and nearly cheered aloud when I completed my last mile in a p.e. class in college, but I do admire all my friends who have run distance races of all kind.  To me they are on par with super heroes.  I have nothing to boast about when it comes to bulging muscles and excellent marathon times.  But I get the feeling I will be able to continue my simple exercise routine way into my grandma years simply because I’ve been doing it for over 20 years already.  It’s deeply embedded in me to get up early and work out. 

When I’m tempted to indulge in a self-improvement operation, I have learned to settle down and be real about what I can incorporate long-term.  Is this something I can still do as an old lady?  YES to so many things!!

I know this can be misread.  I’m not saying to forget ambitious goals, to not set the bar high.  Not at all.  Make your goal big.  But then approach it in a way that is doable.  Make it look like you whether it’s parenting or getting healthy.  If you want to reach a goal, don’t set yourself up for failure by comparing yourself to others or by not being realistic about how long it might take.  That’s all I’m saying.

If you could only know my heart, you’d know how much I LONG to improve and incorporate every mothering, marriage, organizational, cooking and health tip as well as scripture highlighting program I come across.  I want and LONG to be a fun mom with energy and sparkle to share.  I would love to have an amazing cooking repertoire and memory.  And nail beds that look pretty instead of jagged cuticles from filing books and mopping floors.  I’d love to serve as heads of committees (only because I have the vision and the time).  But in spite of all my longings, I know myself.  I am a quieter, steadier, paced kind of soul.   I just know that I have been overwhelmed by my desires to improve, and so I’ve learned to be realistic and ok with small and simple.   I’m content when I notice that the tiny steps I’ve taken over many years have turned into miles.

Therapy

So I spent part of a morning with a grandma friend.  Just a little background, I majored in community health education.  My professors encouraged me to get a gerontology minor.  There was just no way.  I knew myself and that I’d be no good with the older set.  Now that I analyze it, it’s probably based on the very same reasons why I shied away from anything with kids.  I know.  Not a pretty confession.

I don’t know how I came to be in the therapy section of a convalescent home, but before I knew it, I was in a large room—the most energy and movement I’d witnessed in this facility.  This was where the action was.  I sat as her helper moved my friend’s arms and legs for her, helping her stretch.  I asked her if it hurt or felt good.  “It hurts so good,” she explained.

Before I knew it I was at a large table with four women in wheelchairs.  One was stringing beads.  The very same ones I’ve had at home for the little kids.  One was pinching clothespins on a towel.  What a great idea!  I totally would’ve done that with my little ones!  Another one was putting large pegs in an upright board.  I was transported back to my day care days.  I totally remembered those pegs!  Then the friend I came to see was set up next to me with a little card with colored dots and a plastic peg board so she could copy that design with her own tiny pegs laid out on a washcloth (another inspired idea!  So they don’t all roll away—love cheap innovation!)  It was all so interesting to me!  They were here to work on their fine motor skills.

I had no part to play; I was content to make my observations.  And I know we laugh about how life goes full circle and we end up the way we started.  But here I was in my own laboratory, just ticking off the startling similarities in young life just starting and life that is fading.  The closer you get to each end of the spectrum, the more parallels you see.

Both baby types and senior types need lots of help.  Most would like independence; they just haven’t mastered skills or else they’ve lost mastery of their skills.  And yet we continue to cheer on any small accomplishment.  Like the beading I mentioned above.   Beading requires similar mental exertion to grasping Cherrios on a high chair tray and getting them to the mouth, and sometimes they need our help getting started.


They aren’t that stable on their feet.  They don’t quite trust their legs yet/anymore and so can’t walk very well.  The balance is a tad off. 

They sleep a lot.  Sometimes in their seats.  Sometimes in front of the tv.  Sometimes they balk at naptime; usually it’s after lunch.  But they all get up early.  And they don’t always sleep through the night.  In fact, usually they need to go to the bathroom a couple times; they sleep on and off throughout the day—especially the closer they are to the beginning of their life or the end of their life.

They also take things in.  You have no idea they’re engaged until they suddenly say something that reveals just how long they’ve understood what you’ve been saying.  Kind of have to watch yourself.

Both kinds of bodies are a little funny looking, lumpy in weird places, mostly soft.  But that’s also their beauty!!  We totally disregard what their shells look like.  We excuse the baby set and the grandparents from needing to adhere to such rigorous standards; their size is acceptable whatever it looks like.  It’s only the middle part of life where we’re prisoners to what our shell shows.  One reason smiles come easy for these age groups: they are carefree and accepting of their somewhat paunchy yet saggy, wrinkly skins.  They’re just excited when they can get it to work right.  What a blessing our bodies are.  Why do we spend so much energy worrying about how they look and much less on what they can do?

They aren’t afraid to tell it like it is, what the unvarnished truth looks like from their vantage point.  The part of the brain that controls tact isn’t developed or else it came and went.  We make excuses for them.  And that’s fine.  Unfiltered thoughts can be refreshing because along with the kids asking you why you have so many freckles, they also tell you good things you never knew mattered.  And you have to take them at their word because they just say it like they see it.

From what I can see, they are completely accepting and immediately forgiving.  Mistakes are fine, no one cares if you pass a little gas, if you trip them on accident or if you leave them unoccupied for a bit.  They’ll mostly just look around.  You feel safe being just you because you know they don’t hold grudges.  And it’s not even that they can’t remember.  They’re just that way.

I like the way the helper stretched my friend’s muscles.  Gently.  Like it hardly did anything.  Reminded me of when I’d do that with my little babies:  moving their legs around to relieve gas, just to move their muscles and because I figured they’d like it.  I assume older people have sensitive skin and that they’d love to be massaged just like babies.  Who wouldn’t like cream rubbed into them every day?  Sign me up.  I think both sets like to be touched.

They don’t have or else they’ve lost a bit of control with their eating, so they might need a bib.  Some of their food is soft because teeth are hard to come by.  Meals are a big deal, and eating kind of wears them out.

When I looked around, I saw contentment or reflections from a far off place or time.  I always wanted to ask my babies what was going on in their minds.  And I felt the same questions bubbling up in the therapy room.  What were their heads filled with?  What memories were they retracing?  What could they tell me if they could talk?

I liked the slowness of my new friends in therapy and it reminded me of my early mom days when days just had a different speed.  It occurred to me that those just coming and going are the ones who really get it.  I felt like I had been privy to a secret that morning because my friend had let me into her life and we took it at her speed.

Lovin' from the Oven

I wanted to title this one “The Skill That Will Change Your Life.”  But that sounds so presumptuous and expectant.  Although I do believe this one simple skill has the power to enhance your life by at least a little bit.  It was when I was first married.  I’d tell Todd, “You make the dough and I’ll do all the rest” as we set up to make pizzas.  Yeast made me nervous, I had no idea how to work with it.  Eventually I had to take over for whatever reason, probably because he was gone; he was always gone.  Over the years as we visited his parents I ended up in the kitchen with his mom as we made meals and cleaned up.  She taught me the skill of bread making.   I began with the simplest of all breads: French bread.  I have never, ever had this one fail.  I think it’s because the rising part is totally easy—you can’t get tunnels, it’s never doughy, you can make the crust as soft or as crunchy as you want—even burnt it tastes like you made it that way on purpose.  I ventured on to regular white bread and then whole wheat bread.  Soup bowls, rolls, bread sticks, cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, Dutch oven bread. All with varying results.  Lots of flops.  I gravitate to some favorite tried and tested recipes, once I find something I like I’m satisfied and don’t need to keep making sure.  I’m good.

So many otherwise courageous and competent friends of mine shy away from working with yeast.  Now I think that’s funny.  But I get it, I used to be like that.  It’s just that now that I know how easy it is, I long to convince everyone to just try it.  I’ve taught people—you can make bread by hand (all you need is a bowl and a spoon) in easily 10 minutes.  Then it needs to sit for about an hour, and then it takes like 3 minutes to shape.  Just let it rise and bake.  The only parts you could get hung up on are the water temperature and how much flour to add.  Really warm but not hot water, dough the consistency of a new baby’s bottom.  There are you tube videos I’m sure.  I loved the pictures in my cookbooks showing me what the dough should look like step by step.  You can even use a thermometer for the water part if you are that kind of person.  Fool proof.  Figuring out that is such a small investment for a life-changing skill.

It’s powerful.  When you walk into a home where bread is baking, something happens.  You kind of soften, you nearly start to salivate, you might be transported back in time, oddly enough it can even make you feel small and vulnerable.  Like a child who is mothered.  Its smell is simply intoxicating.

Once you learn to make bread all sorts of options open up.  You welcome dinner guests because you know that if everything else about your dinner fails, you can all satisfactorily fill up on bread and it will still be a successful evening.  Once the bread is made and cooling, just having that truism in the back of your mind helps you settle as you make soup or whatever else you’re making. And so inevitably the rest of the dinner—calmly assembled—turns out.  Bread helps you relax.

Bread makes meals a cinch.  Once you’ve got bread, all you need to do is whip up a quick pot of soup or a salad with grilled chicken and you really do have dinner on the table in less than half an hour.  Put together some cinnamon rolls the night before and a special breakfast awaits you in the morning.

As the gift of choice, it makes an excellent sympathy or peace offering as well as the perfect “welcome to the neighborhood” or “I didn’t know what else to get you so I just made you some bread” gift.  Good for grandpas and bachelors, busy moms and large families.  What teen wouldn’t love his own plate of warm cinnamon rolls or paper bag of garlic bread sticks?  Timeless, unisex, cold or hot, loaf or rolled, there’s no right or wrong.  Although you may get an odd look because not many people give gifts like this anymore.  But I’m old-fashioned; bearing a loaf of bread in a cloth towel conjures up images of a pioneer family meeting the new neighbor two miles away.

Bread comforts and warms like little else.  On a cold January night, what sounds better than a thick beef vegetable stew in a crusty bread bowl?  What better side dish for a hearty lasagna than warm French bread or Parmesan bread stick?  I think more than anything else, it makes you feel like you are safe, at home, nurtured, taken care of, like you can take off your shoes and linger.  I suppose if we had a recliner it might beckon you as you waited for the warm bread to emerge.  The smell wraps you in a cocoon of calm allowing you to leave the world at the door, to slow down and to savor the simple pleasure of breaking bread with people you enjoy.

I’m no expert, I’m totally just a regular mom, not a fantastic cook.  But I will teach you what Todd’s mom taught me.  Come on over.  It will change your life.