Suzy Q Homemaker

I don’t know where I get off thinking that things would relax once 3/4 of my children were away from the house for eight hours.  It’s ridiculous!  I’m pretty sure my life just got a little more complicated simply because I am required by law to be at the bus stop with my preschooler at 7:43 a.m. and waiting for him at 4:05 p.m.

Gone are the days of yesteryear when I could throw some cereal at Corey & Aiden and then kick them out the door.  Now I have to deal with a four-year-old that asks, “What day is dis?” every morning and then gets angry when all the days are not Friday.  Corey & Aiden have to fend for themselves in the morning if they want breakfast because I’m busy making Simon get dressed and listening to him chatter about when he’s going to be big like Corey.  You see, as a fifth grader, Corey is Top Dog this year.   He’s on the School Safety Patrol which means he gets to tell other kids what to do–a perfect job for my bossy little Leo.  Naturally, Simon wants to be like Corey.  He even tries to wear his backpack like Corey wears his.  Corey carries a messenger bag, though, so Simon just turns his regular backpack sideways.  It’s quite adorable.

We still try to squeeze things into our schedules every week like going to the Y.  I can’t just go and lose twenty pounds only to put them right back on again this winter.  No sir, I have to maintain this bangin’ bod for all my gigs.  I have dresses to fit into!  Thankfully, the boys are no longer the last drop-off and Jamie gets home early enough that I can manage to go to my fitness classes at least two or three times a week.  If I can’t go to an evening class, I try to make it to a morning one.

This week is rather messed up, though, as Jamie had meetings, Timothy got sick, and my sister is leaving for California.  My family helped her clear out her storage space onto a moving truck yesterday.  I consider that to be my workout for the week as I must have climbed up and down the stairs a couple dozen times with Timothy strapped to my back.  I fetched Gatorade & whatnot when I was rendered useless by my 25-pound handicap.

Tonight, we will be saying goodbye in a new tradition: the First Annual Townsend-Albin-Campbell-Grant-Holden Family Pie Fight!  I am very much looking forward to smashing paper plates full of whipped cream into some deserving faces.  What family doesn’t love each other enough to throw things at one another?  We have raised the bar, folks.  The Christmas Toy War may be trumped by this pie fight.  Will it be as epic as The Three Stooges?  We’ll see…

I finally figured it out.  It took weeks of wondering what on earth was making me dread and detest one of the yoga teachers at our Family Y.  The first time I took one of his classes was not on purpose.  He was subbing for my usual (and most favorite) teacher.  His choice in music freaked me out because I was not expecting a lot of contemporary stuff.  I didn’t know any of the songs he played and it bothered me how distracted I was by all the vocals and emo-riffic chord progressions.

You see, I’m a traditional kind of gal.  I like, if I do listen to music during yoga, to listen to something ethereal, calming, and relaxing.  I have a couple of go-to CD’s that I even copied for my favorite yoga teacher.  She has incorporated them into her playlists, too!  I prefer down-tempo, earthy music or just no music at all.  My advanced yoga teacher prefers no music because her class operates in more of a workshop-type mode.  We start the first have with vinyasas at our own pace and spend the last part of the class getting individual attention while working on the advanced pose du jour.  Last night I did my first headstand in nearly eight years.  Hallelujah!

I digress.

After tweeting with a friend of mine who mentioned him busting out the “Eclipse” soundtrack during yoga when she took one of his classes, it all started clicking into place.  So I looked up one of the songs that I could remember from last week’s class.  It was Muse’s “Neutral Star Collision”…from the “Eclipse” soundtrack.  Okay.  I think Muse is alright.  Just not for yoga.  Then yesterday morning I was able to remember another song and looked it up when I got home.

Let me sidetrack again:  I like Cee Lo/Gnarls Barkley.  I do.  I have an old Goodie Mob album that I enjoy listening to and his songs are my favorites, especially this one:

But it totally threw me when I was trying to “float” into downward-facing dog while his voice was resounding throughout the room.  I was thoroughly distracted.  When I looked up that song, it was a non-surprise that this Cee Lo song was from that damned soundtrack, too.  So I put it out of my mind and tried to take care of my work for the day.  I had to do some laundry, finish up a StoryBook for a client, and deal with the many temper tantrums that Timothy threw whenever I couldn’t hold him.  Later that evening I had a Parent Orientation at the boys’ school and I went to Advanced Yoga afterward to make up for my bad experience that morning.

While Jamie and I were relaxing last night, we got to talking about the situation with this particular yoga teacher and I started investigating the rest of the songs from the “Eclipse” soundtrack.  It was immediately apparent that he was using the entire thing for our yoga routine and he opens with a piece by Philip Glass.

In the many years it took me to complete my music degree, I grew and changed a lot.  I learned to appreciate many genres of music.  As a freshman, I hated contemporary music that was “dissonant”, but later developed an appreciation for composers like Argento and Poulenc.  One genre I could never get past,though, was minimalism.  To put it bluntly: minimalist music makes me feel like hurting someone.  There is a list of movies that I hate.  I never quite put my finger on what it is I hated about these movies until the credits started rolling and the name Philip Glass popped up:

• The Illusionist (stupid movie made worse by stupid music)
• Neverwas (ditto)
• Secret Window (ditto)

Suddenly it all made sense.  The irritation I feel during yoga warm-up isn’t because I’m anticipating his random music–it’s from listening to PHILIP GLASS.  From the moment we’ve been trying to focus our breathing for the practice to come, I’ve been trying not to focus on the fact that the piano music in the background isn’t doing anything.  It’s nearly eight minutes of torture that I had been attributing to the fact that it was morning or I had a headache.

While I can no longer put full blame on the yoga teacher, I do believe he should be made aware of my and my friends’ distaste for his musical choices in class.  Perhaps on a comment card that reads:

If Daniel does not stop playing the “Eclipse” soundtrack during yoga class, I’m going to stab my eyes out.

We’re rounding out the second week of school in these parts and the magic of Pre-K is starting to fade for Simon.  The first week was very exciting as he got to experience riding the bus, getting pizza on Friday, and eating cookies at snack time.  This week, however, it has been difficult to wake him in the mornings.  He went from leaping out of bed to screaming at Aiden for looking at him during breakfast.

In our family, we have a “no video games” policy on school days with the exception of Fridays–if their chores are done & rooms are clean.  So when I woke Simon this morning, I tried to cheer him up by telling him that it was Friday.

“You can play video games today!  And it’s pizza day at school!”

What Simon failed to understand was that the video games were not going to be played until he got home from school.  This set him off for about fifteen minutes and then he decided that he didn’t want to go to school at all.  I’m guessing that he thought if we just stayed home he would get to play all day.

He tried everything in his power to convince me he didn’t need to go to school.  Finally, while reluctantly putting on his shoes, he looked at me with big puppy-dog eyes and said,

“But Mommy, I’m going to miss you.”

Nice try, dear.  You’re still going to school.

Simon’s name, originally uploaded by sheandaru.

Dear Ms. Gamlin,

Simon is our third son and he is terribly sweet. He is four years old and he has a huge imagination. He likes dressing up and playing make-believe games, as well as being read to, making music, dancing, watching TV and playing video games. You will most likely see his dancing come out when he is excited. His favorite make-believe games are playing Harry Potter, acting like Indiana Jones, playing chef, and acting like various super heroes. His music comes out not only through experimenting with the different instruments that we have around the house, but also through making up his own songs. He recently taught himself to snap and to do cartwheels. Simon, you will surely notice pretty soon, has a very mischievous smile that will make you believe that he is up to something. The chances are: he is. We hope you have fun with Simon this year in pre-k. He is very excited about riding the bus and going to “his school”.

Warmly,

Mr. & Mrs. Grant