A song in my heart

This morning, as I was getting Jennifer ready for school, I checked her schedule to see which of her special classes she was having today. I call them "special classes" because these are not classes she has every day. One of them's not even a class. LOL She has library day on Tuesdays, P.E. on Mondays and Thursdays, computer lab on wednesdays and music on Tuesdays and Fridays. Seeing that she had music today, I asked her if she liked her music class.


She shook her head. What the...!


"Why don't you like music class?" I asked.


"Because we have to sing," she said.


I frowned. What's wrong with singing?? When I was a kid, I LOVED to sing! I always looked forward to attending chorus at school, even after I got kicked out of a performance. (This was all before I lost my hearing.) I'd walk home from school practicing songs for my chorus class and my friends and I even made up moves or dances to go along with the songs.


Ah, memories.


And here was my own child, my flesh and blood, obviously not liking that singing business. How shocking! Especially since there's a famous country singer in the family tree. (Whenever I play her CD, Jen always runs to the radio to turn it up. Heh-heh. She still gets a little wide-eyed that, once upon a time, there was a famous singer we were all related to.) And add to this that my grandfather wrote songs. (Luckily, I inherited his songwriting gene. Woot! Now if only I can figure out what to do with the songs that I write...)


But I have a hunch Jennifer prefers to make music, instead of sing to it. She DOES enjoy music. She likes to dance to music and she has been BEGGING me to get her a keyboard for her birthday. (When we go to stores like Target, I always know where to find her if she wanders off: Right in front of the keyboards they have on display, pounding at the keys.) Maybe she will take to singing later on, and she just prefers to create and dance to music for now. i'll have to see if there is someplace that will offer keyboard lessons to a child so young. Or if there's a DVD that will teach her how to play the keyboard, or something.


And on that note: A friend posted a comment on my mySpace today about how she has her kids in music lessons, and that music lessons help math skills. Hey, if that's true, then I better get Jen signed up! One goal for first grade is to improve her math, and with her asking to receive music lessons, now's as good a time as any to get the ball rolling on that!


Still, the whole "we have to sing" thing kinda made me laugh. Especially when I remembered that scene from the movie, Addams Family Values, when Wednesday gloomily tells her uncle and parents, "You sent us to camp. They made us sing."




Well, even if my child doesn't sing, at least in my heart, I'll be singing for the both of us.