Tuesday 17 April 2012

Getting musical

Not great weather today (though the boys did get outside to play in the garden briefly just before tea, and got very muddy, but hey, that's what washing machines are for...) so we had the whole morning and a good part of the afternoon spent indoors.  We went out in the afternoon for a much needed but disliked (by Mummy) trip to the barbers, and to post some cards.  (Disliked because queues in barbers + queues in Post Office + lively boys who have been cooped up all day = stressed Mummy :(  Anyway, once back home and safely away from the disapproving stares of trendily shorn young men and ancient & unsympathetic Post Office ladies, and we had a good time, sparked at teatime...
Now, my boys are not what you call speedy eaters, by any stretch of the imagination: they are aware of the food and the need to get it in their mouths, but they take a very l-e-i-s-u-r-e-l-y approach to actually doing it.  I guess it's nice to have that social time of chatting & laughing, and none of them seem to have inherited my dislike of eating once-hot-food-now-gone-cold, which is just as well, it just means Mummy spends lots of time looking at my empty plate and their still-mostly-full ones.  Anyway, during these unhurried meals we had Classic FM playing on the kitchen radio - and DS1 started seeing if he could spot the instruments playing at any one time.  DS2 quickly joined in (I was impressed at how accurate his listening was) and DS3 - not to be outdone - joined in, calling out random instruments regardless of whether they were playing or not.  That progressed to DS2 doing a beautiful impression of a "commander" (conductor), followed by some impressive air violin (and then air-guitar rock-star style, courtesy of DS3 who more than makes up in enthusiasm whatever he lacks in understanding)  It was so much fun :)  Tea went cold (again) but was eventually eaten, and Mummy's equilibrium was restored.  Music is known to have restorative powers, but so does the sight of my children having good old innocent fun!
In fact, it's prompted me to look out some CDs and a book I have called The Story of the Orchestra, so the boys can have a look tomorrow, and see what it inspires :)

2 comments:

  1. Have you done Peter and the wolf? My DS1 loved that :-)

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  2. Funnily enough, Sally, we had that on the other day, and DS1 remembered it from when I did it with his class at school a few years ago! we'll definitely be digging the book out to read with the CD soon :)

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