Sing. Sing A Song.

I’ve started singing in church.  Now, I don’t mean singing in the choir or anything like that.  It’s just that when the congregation rises to worship in song, I actually open my mouth and make noise sing, rather than just standing there trying to look pleasant.  For me, that’s a big step.

I don’t consider myself particularly musical.   My history as a musician has consisted mostly of trying really, really hard to be adequate. 

I took piano lessons as a kid.  My mother took it upon herself to see that I practiced fifteen minutes to half-an-hour almost every day.  And through all that practice, I managed to become an adequate pianist.  There was no real inborn talent, just being taught how to play.  I did, however, take the initiative to take apart my metronome with a screwdriver.  I wanted to see how it worked.  The result of my experiment?  There were gears and stuff inside.  BRILLIANT!

I also played the flute for about five years.  Unlike piano, practicing was not a chore; I enjoyed playing the flute.  But again, any success I had was through lessons and hard work, not necessarily because of any inborn talent.  I never became an expert flautist, I simply managed to become a decent flautist.

So imagine my surprise to see how crazy about music Preschooler is.  She sings with abandon.  She pretends her Barbies are any type of wind or brass instruments.  She gathers a plethora of objects around her and uses them as a makeshift drum kit.

I showed my usual lack of parenting common sense, and bought her one of those toy instrument sets, with a drum, maracas, tambourine and jingle bells.  She hardly puts the thing down.  I even went insane for about ten minutes, and considered buying her a real child-sized drum kit.

The gift of song is uplifting.  And loud.  And sometimes grating. But mostly joyful.