Category: Music
Thursday, Sep 15, 2011 | Kids, Music, Parenting |
Do reward systems work, as a parenting method? I’ve been pretty firmly against them, on principle. On principle, I believe that kids should do their jobs to help the family out, as participants in a collective effort.
But it turns out that our eldest is highly motivated by reward; and highly not-motivated by his mother’s principles. This summer, to earn money, and completely of his own initiative, he worked for his grandma on several very hot afternoons. The work was gardening, which he blithely ignores at home, but at Grandma’s he threw his whole heart into the job. They went to the library and researched plants. They went to the greenhouse, and he picked out flowers and plants based on his research. Then he dug the garden beds and planted the flowers and plants, and watered them. For which he earned some money. And he took great delight in the connection between working hard and earning a reward.
Which got me rethinking my original no-reward system of family governance (or, more precisely, the-reward-is-in-the-happy-feeling-you-get-from-helping-out-your-family system). I’m not abandoning that system, or the concept of responsibility. The kids do have responsibilities, and important ones, like walking to school, and making sure younger siblings get safely to and from school. And going to bed when told. And doing their homework.
Which brings me around to the grey area of piano lessons. They kind of have to take piano lessons; perhaps they would want to even if the choice were wholly theirs, but the truth of the matter is, their mother wants them to take piano lessons, and three out of four children are doing just that this fall. It’s Fooey’s first year, and A and A’s third. Now, before this round of lessons ever started, Albus heard from a friend that the friend’s piano teacher gives out stickers for “good” practices, which, if enough were earned would eventually add up to actual prizes (Albus heard giant Lego ships; I’m thinking portions of this story might be apocryphal).
But in any case. Intriguing. What counts as a prize? For AppleApple, it’s a book. For Albus, it’s Lego. And what counts as a “good” piano practice? Basically just focus and attention. Also, as a rule, play each song at least three times. Albus was over the moon: imagine getting stickers just for practicing the piano. And I thought, imagine children practicing the piano just for getting stickers.
So I made up sticker sheets for each child (CJ could not be left out, and he actually sits at the piano and hammers away to earn his sticker). The rule is only one sticker can be earned per day. I hope it won’t discourage kids from taking an extra turn on the piano if they are so inspired, but I sensed that sticker madness followed by sticker burnout might quickly occur if limitations weren’t instituted.
Before getting all hurray-for-stickers, I will allow that it’s early days, just the second week of lessons, but hurray for stickers! Piano practice, and lessons, have thus far been completely pain-free, even pleasurable. The only issue is children fighting for time on the piano. Practice has been happening first thing in the morning, before school. Best of all (and this is my reward), the extra practicing is paying off: music is being made daily in our living-room.
Friday, Sep 9, 2011 | Music, Work |
This morning it was sun hats. It had to be something. Fooey couldn’t find hers, last minute, of course, and left wearing an old one and not very happy. Not the best start to her walk, but hopefully being outside in the bright fall sunshine quickly cheered her up.
I’ve been up since 5:15am, swam laps for an hour, came home to get kids organized and fed, and worked on a couple of music-related projects with the kids. AppleApple is learning “Across the Universe” for her Singer’s Theatre audition (her choice; and a tough tune to perfect. She amazes me with her patience and not just willingness, but eagerness, to take suggestions from me in her efforts to improve). And Albus practiced piano before school, too. (This year, we’ve agreed that he earns a star sticker for every “good” practice, and when he has 100 stars, he gets a reward; likely Lego-related. The girls can earn stickers too. Will this last? It may. He’s highly motivated by rewards and by money. Apparently the lad takes after his dad, which probably means he’ll go far, whether or not he ever learns to write neatly).
I can’t write neatly either, come to think of it. Thank heavens I learned to type at an early age. It comes in handy, being able to spit words as quickly as thought.
On a dimly related topic, I’m considering a different writing strategy this fall. Because I’ve spent years working on the same material, and crafting and re-crafting it, it’s daunting to leap into something entirely fresh and new, with brand-new characters who have brand-new stories to tell. Daunting, but exciting, too. In the past, I’ve never written for length or volume. My style is fairly compressed. But for this project, I’m considering tracking my words-per-day, and writing lavishly, spilling words, aiming in my first draft to give ample voice to characters within a fairly tight and dedicated plotline. My role-model for this project is Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog. In other words, mystery, dark pasts, multiple perspectives.
I’m calling it The Swimmer.
Yesterday evening, while running, I had a vision: a shelf of pretty paperbacks, all different, with my name on the spines. I’ve been thinking of myself as a book-a-decade writer, ie. someone unable to produce excellent work quickly, someone who gestates stories very very slowly. And I’m not afraid of the potential slowness of the process, either; I’m a fan of patience, and patience rewarded. But here’s the thing: I’ve also never had the chance to work as many hours a week as I do this year, and in years to come the hours will grow. What if I put my head down and work the way I’ve worked at becoming triathlon-ready? It was thrilling to let myself imagine creating a variety of books, to chase down the ideas floating around my brain, to gather and bring them to coherence. I may be pursuing a career in a dying industry, but I refuse to believe it. Go read a book, any book, and you’ll remember what you’re missing out on as you surf the web late at night.
And with those thoughts, I’ll begin today’s writing day, trying to remember to sit up straight, not to slouch or twist in my ergnomically-sound chair, and to get up and take regular rest breaks. I’m also turning off my email for chunks of time throughout the day. No distractions.
Oh, and swimming and running are just the best times for thinking about my characters. And on the flip side, thinking about my characters makes swimming and running easier because time just slides by.
Sunday, Jul 24, 2011 | Kids, Mothering, Music, Photos, Soccer, Summer, Swimming |
This past week’s lack of posts does not indicate a lack of activity, but the opposite: too much on the go, and no time to sit and create captions for photos. Or, in many cases, even to take photos.
So, here, instead, are sketches of all the blogs I meant to write.
The children migrating to the basement blog
This week it got hot. We chose not to run our air conditioning, which requires shutting up the house. Instead, we toughed it out (still toughing it out, in fact; still hot). On the hottest day (37 degrees C), which was Thursday, it was also oppressively humid. That night, the kids slept in the basement. They’d been migrating there all week anyway, seeking the coolest space in the house. One morning, before swim lessons, they made a band (Fooey, who is really and truly a loud child, did an excellent impression of a punk rock singer; the song went “Ya, ya, ya, I love penguins …”). And I thought to myself: man, I love these kids. (Tiny related observation that could have been its own blog: how awesome to have older kids organizing the younger ones into activities like making a band and putting on plays, which they also did this week; I spent a lot of time on musical marches around the house and homemade plays when the older kids were little; how awesome to see that investment paying off).
The choosing the activities I really like to do blog
(No, the photo is not related.) For two weeks, we’re doing a summer activity I really look forward to: every morning, we bike to an outdoor pool a couple of kms away, the kids have swim lessons, and due to fortuitous scheduling I get a half-hour lane swim, too. Then we shower, snack, and bike home again. Sometimes we stop along the way at the library or grocery store. It’s been hot. I realize this activity, with four children in tow, might sound positively torturous to some; but I really love it. The rhythm is relaxed. We’re getting good exercise together. It’s a mini-adventure, but its daily repetition requires of me little thought or extra planning.
The day of crazy chapters blog
Some days are mere phrases, a sentence at most; some have chapters. Friday had chapters. Chapter one was not good: worn out from a week with the children, breakfast damn near did me in. The complaints. The whining. The stream of criticism. I’m talking about you, offspring. Nevertheless, I chose not to quit my job (ie. of mother). Chapter two: We biked to the pool. We swam. We snacked. We biked home. We lunched. Chapter three: I gathered props and drove to a photo shoot (Kev spelled me off). Yes, you read that right. A photo shoot. I’ll explain later. Chapter four: Home again to pick up local food order from Bailey’s, with three-year-old in tow. Unpacked food. Made supper. Welcomed babysitter. Added necklace to my outfit. Chapter five: Drove away with Kevin to Hillside Festival. Just the two of us. Blissful outdoor evening of dancing, eating delicious food without interruption, drinking beer, washed in music.
The comparison between evenings blog
A little too blissful: Friday evening. Because Saturday, oh Saturday … soccer game in Orangeville, driving in the heat, sitting on the sidelines in the heat, wrangling offspring in the heat, endless trips to porta-potties, ditches, community centre bathrooms in the heat … and then, finally, supper, back home, prepared with care: freshly made gazpacho, steak sandwiches, grilled zucchini and cauliflower, completely rejected by two out of four children. More whining: “I want pearsauce! I want pearsauce! I want pearsauce!” More demands: “Why aren’t you getting my water that I asked for when I asked for it!” More dirty dishes. Kevin and I looking at each other across the table, wishing we were back at Hillside. Just the two of us.
The Mary Oliver blog
All week I’ve been reading a collection of essays, prose poems, and poems by Mary Oliver, called Winter Hours. Enticing title in this heat. There’s a longer blog here on the subject of poetry — writing it and reading it — but I haven’t got the mental space to pull it all together. This is a book I will read again. Every evening, before sleep, it’s been like cool water pouring over me. There is a chapter on her poem The Swan in which she effortlessly tells me everything I’d need to know to write and read poetry with more depth and insight. Count me a convert.
Wednesday, Jun 8, 2011 | Kids, Music, Summer, Swimming |
Borrowed wetsuit. Climbing in and zipping up. Even the ten-year-old is impressed with the super-hero get-up. 7:30pm, Monday.
In the lake. Taking the wetsuit for a spin. The water is mucky brown and thick with sediment. The sky and trees, perfect. 7:45, Monday.
At the park for soccer practice. Glad it’s within biking distance. A tree she can climb. Mother reading on picnic blanket only wishes the mosquitos hadn’t found her and told all their friends. 8:15pm, Tuesday.
Piano plus soccer uniform = unplanned post-game down-time. He’s not practicing (lessons are over for the summer); he’s making music. 9pm, Tuesday.
Long evenings are short-lived, in our portion of the hemisphere, and we are filling up the extra light with outdoor activities. Arriving home after 9pm with wide-awake children is taking a toll on my early morning training, and perhaps also on my midday thinking, but I’m going with the pull of the season. And the pull of older children with their own schedules and interests: soccer soccer and more soccer. We plan to head back to the lake this evening, this time with friends and a picnic. The kids can cool off in the water. And I hope to swim farther, this time, be braver, with an extra set of eyes on me. Race day is in less that two weeks: in the same lake pictured above.
Sunday, Jun 5, 2011 | Kids, Music |
It’s the green socks. And the headband. Man, do I love this girl. She makes her own style and she owns it.
Saturday, May 21, 2011 | Music, The Juliet Stories, Word of the Year, Writing |
I went to a concert earlier this week. If you want to hear one of the songs, here’s her version of “Long Time Sun,” although her onstage version was less-produced-sounding, and we all got to sing along. In fact, we sang along (or chanted) the entire two-and-a-half hour concert.
During the concert, I was struck by two thoughts that are not quite enormous enough to be called revelations, but nevertheless felt revelatory. The first was that I must stay open to mystery. Not sure why I need the reminder, but maybe in all this literal, physical work I’ve been doing toward the triathlon, I’ve forgotten that it is driven by the spirit, and that without a strong spirit, I wouldn’t be able to do it. It also reminded me that my word of the year is “heart.” Still haven’t figured out much about that (admittedly cliched) word and the year’s almost half over; but there’s a piece of mystery to ponder.
The other thought that came over me powerfully is the fortune of my family: my children, my husband. I was just overwhelmed with gratitude for them.
This whole post sounds cheesy, like most heart-felt things. I thought a lot about my Juliet Stories during the concert, and my hope for them is that they express the heart-felt without being cheesy. But this post is written in haste on a sunny spring afternoon and there is no distillation in it. And that, my friends, is the difference between story and blog.
