Day +567: Musical adventures

I continue to be amazed at how much my son loves music. He has ever since he was a baby, but I keep waiting for his interest to sort of peak as he gets older. When his favorite "Music Together" CD comes on he just stands in front of the stereo and sways back and forth. He knows some of the words to the songs -- he can't sing them all yet, but he sort of mouths the words and then he sings the closing word of each line. And sometimes he'll glide around the house hopping gracefully up and down, singing and clapping his hands in a kind of rhythm.

Tonight there was a song on the stereo in 3/4 time, and I was clapping in a ONE-two-three ONE-two-three rhythm, and it really seemed like he was close to getting the rhythm down. Yesterday Keri visited a friend's house whose child has a guitar. Keri said Isaac would not leave the guitar alone the whole time they were there, and he was kind of upset about leaving the house because of the guitar. Then this morning at breakfast Isaac told me spontaneously that he wants to go back to Christy's house. Then he proceeded to say "I don't like this house". When I asked him why, he said because there's no guitar here. He talked about the guitar intermittently all day long, even telling Meghan the babysitter about it. Needless to say, we've put a guitar on his Christmas list this year. Keri and I will probably try to find a used guitar one somewhere.

I kind of knew he would like a guitar, because he and Mina had really been enjoying strumming a rubber band that was stretched around the handles of her baby stroller. We took the kids out for a walk in Golden Gate Park while Grandma and Grandpa were here, and ended up in a sculpture garden at the DeYoung Museum. Grandma and Grandpa and I sat on a bench for probably 20-25 minutes while Mina was up in a little tree, and Isaac was strumming that rubber band and singing. Climbing is pretty much Mina's favorite activity, and singing is definitely Isaac's.

The thing I wanted to note about Mina is how much she loves her school. I thought maybe she would get tired of going as the novelty kind of wore off, but that doesn't seem to be happening at all. She goes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, skipping Thursdays so that Keri doesn't have to get them up and out early the day after she teaches until 10 PM, and so that Keri can see them after spending so much time early in the week prepping for her class. Anyway, yesterday Mina was disappointed that she wasn't going to going to school that day. That got us thinking maybe she's ready for four days a week. One day a few weeks ago when I dropped Mina off for school, one of the other parents came up to me as I was just about to head out. She pointed out to me that Mina was in the middle of a circle of girls and they were all arguing about who got to be Mina's "cousin". Little socialite. She and Isaac spent Wednesday evening at Kaaren's house while Keri taught and I was at a meeting in Idaho. She saw her friend, Kaaren's granddaughter Michaela, for the first time in quite a while. Kaaren said Michaela was so excited she gave Mina a great big, long hug. Michaela was Mina's first real friend that she made all on her own while they were both going to Kaaren's, and Mina really missed her when Michaela started going to preschool instead of to Kaaren's house, so it's nice that they got to see each other again, and that they still played so well together.

This blog seems to have devolved into a bragfest about the Olsen-Olson kids, sorry about that. I suppose it's better than the alternatives.