Saturday, May 1, 2010










i'm so happy for t.j. that his electric guitar didn't float away in our flooded basement.  thankfully, it was upstairs in the family room.....waiting to be listed on e-bay.  t.j. and grace both got their electric guitars about5years agoon Christmas morning! oh, they were excited! santa left a shiny pink one for grace and a shiny bluenumber for t.j.  those were the days....as little kids, they had little garage moments in the spring and fall with the little friends who lived aroundus!  they had positions with tape on the garage floor. grace was the choreographer and played guitar while t.j. jammed with his plugged in electric piece...there was an electric piano...some shakers and lots more. they wore hats and cowboy boots and sparkly shoes and danced to the music!

today, that guitar is about to be listed on e-bay.  those rock and roll days aren't here to stay...sadly.  these days, there music is playing on their i-pods in their ears or in their room....or  blaring out of the computer...not exactly surround sound.  
t.j. says it's over.  his hopes of continuing his music career has waned.  grace is more likely to sing her way through life...especially since her shiny pink electric guitar has been sold and shipped to philadelphia to a guy with "a gig".  that's what he told me when he asked how soon i could ship.

so our days are still filled with music...just not a spanky and our gang type.  
i love to hear why they like their music choices and even though biff and i aren't sure if we like some of it, they'll be happy to share the good, the bad and the ugly of it all.

i guess it's like grace's choice of dress.  she may have her moments as a recalcitant teen....at least she has great style.  she could have chosen goth...i'd rather have a few words here and there....especially since they're few and far between these days.  she has awesome style and i laugh to think of the days when she wore 4 or 5 outfits.....before lunch!

same for t.j.  his style is just great. he's  a traditional kid too.  i like that.  he may not be jammin' but he spends lots of time making live action movies with friends....not quite james bond....maybe james bond with a bit of inspector clusseau.
 i love that they have some creativity in their lives. the arts of all kinds are important to me.  sadly, in school, there's never enough time and they continue cutting the arts bucks.  that's sad. they say that kids don't get enough creativity.  if  all of the kids in this generation had been able to come home from school, have milk and cookies with their family, then move outside for the afternoon rather than most of them being ripped away from free play to go to an organized practice with coaches telling them how to play, they may have all been better off.

we could only do what we thought was best for our kids....at the time.  everyone does what they think is best...hopefully, with the kid in mind.  

i am grateful for the days that i allowed grace the freedom of 12 turtlenecks in a day!  i'm glad that i let t.j. wear his "wed wubber boots" for most of his 3rd year of life.  i'm glad our family room had legos on the floor and doll house people turning up in the couch.  i think it was crazy when grace and t.j. ran outside in bathing suits in march...barefoot in the snow...it was only a minute....they were happy! i was shocked but happy and relieved when after a minute they both ran inside. i'm glad for all of the flour on the kitchen table and even more on the floor.  i'm so delighted when biff, grace and t.j. and i talk about the "old days" and they remember the johnson's baby powder that they shook all over t.j.'s room....at least it smelled fresh....even though he had a red rug!

wow! i'm sorry to see the electric guitar go...but, we're on to new adventures and new interests....and they're still changing. today, i asked t.j. if he wanted to go back to annapolis for lacrosse camp with the midshipmen....he said,"mom, don't you remember, i don't like lacrosse anymore!" after 5 or 6 years on teams and lax camps and equipment and uniforms and.....oh well, things change.  he'll probably ask for a new stick tomorrow.