People of a certain age will understand the phrase “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket”. In my case, I can’t carry one in a bucket, a truck, a semi, a train or any other thing that is really big and carries things. The problem is, I really like to sing….and dance.
Just the other day, Hunter and I were in the grocery store wandering the aisles and it was quiet enough you could hear the music playing. My grocery store plays my kind of music, which is primarily classic rock. I don’t remember the song that was playing, but it wasn’t long before Hunter and I both were dancing in the aisle to the tune, whisper-singing the words. We looked at each other, she said we were weird, and we went right on singing and dancing while looking for crackers on the shelves.
After that fleeting moment realizing my girl is the same kind of weird I am, I was reminded of a time much longer ago when I was singing and dancing in the car and received a completely different response.
When the girls were little, we lived out in the country about 35 miles from my office. I would get out early and drop them off at a daycare near my office rather than out by our house which provided me a lot of opportunity to entertain them to and from work. My car only had a radio at first so I would make up stories to entertain Hunter during our trips. Mostly about the cats and dogs. I would weave in old cartoons such as Pepe’ Le Pew thinking Precious (a beautiful black and white long hair) was a skunk and he was in love with her and other crazy stories. Around the time Erin was born, Michael got me a new car and this one had a CD player. It wasn’t long before I had CD’s with children’s songs and the School House Rock series to help them learn along the way.
Erin didn’t grow quite as quickly as Hunter did. Hunter was 30lbs at 1 year old and had 8 teeth before she was 6 months old. Erin was born weighing more than 3lbs less than Hunter and didn’t get her first tooth until she was more than a year old. With this in mind, she also didn’t speak until well after that. As with most kids, her first words were Momma, Dadda and NO! (She still likes that word, NO!).
One summer day, as we were driving along on the way home. Hunter was 4 and sitting in her booster seat behind the passenger side of the car and Erin was somewhere between 1 and 2 and was in her booster seat behind the drivers side. With that seating chart, you can imagine I could not really see Erin well. As Erin could only say a word or so, Hunter and I had the music turned up pretty well and were enjoying singing loudly and poorly as was our norm. Along the way, and only once in awhile I would hear a noise. I turned down the music and the noise was no longer there. Thinking I had been mistaken, I turned the music back up and Hunter and I began to sing even more loudly and dance in our seats.
Again, I hear this noise. Where is it coming from? What is that noise? I turned the sound down again and listened ~ nothing. So I decided to pay close attention when I turned the music back up this time. I didn’t make it quite as loud as before and this time only I began to sing. The noise came again and I could tell it was Erin. She was trying to say something. What was it? What was she saying? When I turned the music down, she had stopped. Now that I knew it was her, I paid extra close attention and turned up the music again, singing. “NO!” is what she was saying. Putting her tiny hand up like a stop sign, she was saying “NO!, NO!” . When I would stop singing, she would stop saying “NO!”, put her hand down and go along looking out the window. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. A one year old kid had raised her hand in protest to my singing.
The truth is, I know I can’t sing. I have known forever, but I love it and it makes me feel good. So I still sing and dance, and therefore when I am home alone or driving in the car listening to music, I reach over and turn it up loud and sing like nobody is watching; not even Erin and her tiny hand of protest.
