Skip to main content

The First Whiff of Responsibility

Zoe is five, and irresponsible in the way that young kids are.  If I send her to clean her room or get dressed to go outside, there’s no way that it will get done without direct supervision.  Sometimes toothbrushing goes all right independently, and specific, fun chores like feeding the cat, when I remind her - but she’s not ready for adulthood yet. 

I woke up too early yesterday morning.  Well, I had set an extra alarm to make sure that I got up - and I got up to the wrong one, the early one.  It felt terrible. 

I had come in from teaching at a reasonable hour, but by the time Steve and I got caught up over a lovely glass of wine and by the time I had finished winding up 12 more reeds, it was late, and I was tired, and when my 6:30 alarm went off I forgot that it was the pre-alarm and I got up and headed for the kitchen, with Zoe trailing gamely behind me.

I started the kettle boiling for coffee, and then I noticed the oven clock, and realized that I could have slept a full 30 minutes longer.  I considered trying to restart, and I thought about how to fill 30 extra minutes of morning, and I thought about lots of things.  I probably could have stood there, staring blankly at the kitchen clock, until the bus came, but Zoe realized that she’d forgotten her bear in the bed, and once we were back in the bedroom nothing prevented me from just slipping ever so gently under the covers, and Zoe gamely climbed in with me.  I knew the real alarm would go off at 7, but meanwhile the bed was so soft… and so warm… and my daughter was so snuggly… and this wasn’t irresponsibility, this was just reclaiming the time that was OWED to me…

But no one had explained my sleep entitlement to my responsible child.  After a few blissful moments, just as my brain was shutting back down, I heard a tiny, worried voice from deep within my arms.

“But what about breakfast, and school?”

Fair enough, my love.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies.  Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked.  I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel.  If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance.  Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street.  She makes us sing along.  She loves it when we clap at the end.  When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later.  Her immediate interest is in ...
2 comments
Read more

Cleaning Your Reeds

Updated: I've posted a video of my plaque cleaning technique HERE ! Oboe reeds are made from organic material, and over time it is inevitable that they will age and change. The first few days of change are usually quite welcome, as you break the reed in by playing and the opening gradually settles down to something you can be comfortable with and the response becomes more and more predictable.  You might even hit a plateau where it appears to be perfectly consistent and reliable for several days! But after that, the reed seems to be on a constant gradually accelerating downslope, until it eventually collapses into a sharp, non-responsive, mushy mess. We can rejuvenate the reed during this time by cleaning it, and can often extend its life as well! There are three good ways to do this. First, least invasively, you can just run some fresh water through and over the reed AFTER you play each time.  Go ahead and rinse that reed in the sink, shake it as dry as possible, a...
6 comments
Read more

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...
7 comments
Read more