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Category: Family, Parenting

Tuesday Tunes: You’re No Good

And it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns…

that I would have to start believing in possibilities
that I wouldn’t have allowed before,
that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale…

that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorientate myself.

― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. 1

50 years ago yesterday the first, eponymous Bob Dylan album was released.

I love a great many Bob Dylan songs and albums; I love the long, labyrinthine songs, the political songs, the calls to action, the streams of consciousness, the funny songs, the love songs, the f*ck you songs.

But these first songs, the songs of a young guy who decided he was good enough, better than that even, who struck out for the city and told everybody he was the best damn folk singer around and people believed him, and yet the songs smack of loneliness and vulnerability and trying to be an echo of the greats of the past— as an album, this is my favorite.

Bob has been down but never out, he has reinvented himself more times than Madonna, he has been touring continuously for the last— what? 20 years? more?— his is really an American Story. The self-made man.

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night,
and in between he does what he wants to do.
― Bob Dylan

Hell yeah.

Anyway, this video is just a quick tribute to Bob. It’s the first song off that first album, and I remember hearing it for the first time, stopping the tape, rewinding, and listening to it again and again. It’s such a fun song to sing. And I LOVE that I can just ask Jake to quickly learn a song and he totally plays along with my reindeer games. Did I mention he just randomly picked up my old guitar about 6 months ago and proceeded to teach himself to play using only YouTube? I’m incredibly jealous of his musical ability.

Speaking of musical ability: I don’t claim to sing it well. I’m just saying it was fun

What songs do you love to sing with your kids?

What are you listening to this week? Tell me in the comments or write your own Tuesday Tunes and link up with High Impact Mom. Be sure to visit all of the other Tuesday Tuners and find out what’s being played around the interwebz.

March 20, 2012
Wordless(ish) Wednesday: A Week with Cass

People with great passions,
people who accomplish great deeds,
people who possess strong feelings,
even people with great minds and a strong personality,

rarely come out of good little boys and girls.

― Lev S. Vygotsky

This quote is not directly linked to this post, but it’s making me feel a whole hella lot better about the way the month of March has gone for me so far.

Here she is, first thing in the morning, bedhead, face puffed with sleep. She is a pain to wake up so I tend to just lift her out of bed and deposit her unceremoniously at the table.

And, here she is after noticing I was taking her picture.

We had our last basketball games on Saturday. This was the first time playing basketball for all three kids; Jake picked it up rather quickly, Maverick quickly decided basketball wasn’t his “thing” but he soldiered on pretty much uncomplainingly, and Cass revisited her dancing days (I texted Jeff to see how one game was going since I was at Maverick’s game; he quickly replied “Up by two. Cass doing South Pacific”).

Cass took some serious hits this season; a ball or two or five to the face, a full-on collision with a much bigger kid that sent her flying across the court on her belly, a fall onto a ball with her ribcage. She’s also really little and had zero experience shooting the ball (I simply do not know how you are supposed to practice basketball at this age; the basket is 8ft. Higher than the ones you can buy at Toys R Us, lower than at the park). By the end of season she had all the parents, on our team and others, rooting her on, cheering loudly whenever she made a basket. After getting her medal several came over to tell her how much she’d improved this season. One lingered to ask me, “Is she always like this? Does anything ever get her down?”

Well, yeah. She’s sensitive (and frankly, I’d like her to stay that way). She’s easily upset by perceived injustice: Jacob making a mean face, Maverick getting a bigger dessert. I can tell when she’s coming down with something because it’s directly proportional to how much she whines and how quickly her tone of voice gets on my nerves. But on the courts and on the fields, she’s there to have fun. It’s way more important to her than winning. And I love how infectious that is, how her irrepressible joy from movement and being on a team can touch other parents.

Almost as much as I loved that lady saying how she hates my daughter.

Soccer starts March 31st! Bring it.

Postscript: I don’t know why I continue to pretend this is Wordless. I swear they always start out with just very very brief captions. The first one was wordless, does that count for anything?

March 7, 2012
Targeting Children with Treats Infographic: Marketing to Children Sucks

Seriously, it does. We realize this when our kids get the gimmes from the marketing machine alerting them what they need to ask for for Christmas, but we overlook the constant day-to-day bombardment of ads about foods.

Interesting how cereals ads outnumber fast food ads by more than half. And while most people (I think) limit fast food meals to one a week or so, we give our kids cereal pretty much every day. It’s one of the foods that are easily mistaken for healthy, but the numbers don’t necessarily bear that out.

We know that sweets aren’t good for kids, maybe we need to take a harder look at the nutritional value of the stuff they get all the time.

Brought to you by Teach.com and MAT@USC.

March 4, 2012