A Tear To My Eye...

You know, I'm having quite a bit of fun at the stage of parenting I'm at. The kids are all able to pee independently and buckle their own car seats. Nobody needs my body parts in order to eat. (not that I minded that! I'm just saying...) Everyone is old enough to have interesting conversations with. And now, with my oldest nearing 15 years old, I'm getting even more fun stuff.

I've been looking forward to being the mom who always said Yes to having the garage band practice at her house. (we don't have a garage, but they come here anyhow) I just love the happy racket that comes from my oldest son's room now that he is playing electric guitar and bass. (teaching himself, and doing an amazing job at it! A great living example for us of how well people do when they are motivated to learn something.)

Today was another great moment. My oldest is in marching band now, and today was the end of their nearly 3-week-long band camp. So they had a little concert performance for the parents, so they could show off what they learned so far.

Now, let me just back up to say that my wonderful oldest son has a personality very similar to mine. He's very individualistic, for one thing. Up until recently he has mostly pursued things that he could work on by himself and do in a freestyle sort of way. He doesn't care much for conformity, and has had a bit of an adjustment being in school and learning that sometimes (a lot of times, for students!) you have to do what you're told even if you don't want to and it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Last year we started talking to him about marching band, hoping that he would be interested in it by the time he was ready to start high school. Other than the fact that my husband and I love marching bands, we felt like being a part of one would give our son an experience that he needs to help round out his personality and perspective about teamwork, hard work, suffering a little to achieve a goal, and so forth. When we first talked to him about it, his opinion was that marching band would be annoying and "too hard." We were wondering what kind of character deficits our child had that he would shy away from hard work in marching band.

Well, just like my other kids, he's a smart cookie. It didn't take long before he was not only doing his regular school band stuff, but added pep band and jazz band into his routine, and then wanted to join the marching band.

So, here we are. For over two weeks he's gotten up at 7:30am to go sweat and strain and march and play trombone from 8-5 Monday-Friday. He's now tanned and is sporting new muscles thanks to holding his instrument up for hours and hours every day. He's like a buffer, cooler version of himself. :)

And so tonite I got a little taste of the fun we're going to have with marching band this year. It was really exciting to see what the group has learned in such a short period of time, and it really thrilled me to see my kid doing his thing so well. Wow! Inspirational, I tell ya!

It was also great to take my younger kids. Believe it or not, it wasn't even stressful to take them along. How wonderful to be at the point where I could have them all obey, tag along, follow directions, and be able to see their brother in the group, and not have to stress out over little tots straying away from me. It's like a breath of fresh air!

So, life is good. What can I say? I'm chipping away at my Plagues and Nuisances list, my husband is doing a great job handling the money, and my kids are growing and thriving. I'm also reading a "dangerous" book that is interesting and thought-provoking. Maybe I'll tell you about it another day....