music together
well, we didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. magnificent is ill, and he was up coughing a lot of the evening. i wasn’t sleeping well because, well, i rarely do. i remember looking at the clock and it reading 4.30am.
a just a few seconds later, sebastian bounded into our room, and told his dad he wanted to play trains with him. it was 7am, a new day had commenced. lita saw my face and told me to go back to sleep, she had everything under control. (no surprise there, this woman could run a multinational and a marathon simultaneously).
charles, equally as sleep deprived, allowed himself the chance to get some extra sleep as well.
suddenly, it was 10am. i shot out of bed…."the babies are starting their music together programme today!"
we hastily got dressed, and i was in such a panic i couldn’t find the address for where we were heading. i called denby, who never gets in a panic, and she provided it for me. (she goes on thursdays).
charles offered to drive us, and so we piled into the car, and only five minutes late, we arrived at the location. we grabbed the babeolas and ran into the classroom, where a LOT of parents/helpers were sitting on the ground with their babies on their laps. music was playing and the babies/children were moving around.
lita, de and i each had a baby, and were soon bouncing them around. we sang familiar songs, lullabies, children’s tunes, harmonies and rounds. all the time, we swung the kids, danced with them, walked around the room with them, and, to quote the teacher, "let them express themselves".
it was surreal being there, with my children just one of the babies. sure they were triplets, but only one other couple there knew their story. not preemies, rather, babies learning to respond to music however they chose.
JASPER – only cried once. his favourite part of the class was when he was given a small set of marracas and he got to shake them around. we were singing a "Train" song at the time and were meant to shake them during the "choo-choo" portion of the song, but jasper choo-chood pretty continually. he got quite sweaty and needed some water halfway through. he danced toward the end, sitting on his bottom and rocking back and forth.
SELA – was very social, and would have crawled up to the box where the instruments were held and grabbed her own if i had let her. other kids were coming up to her and giving her cuddles and this didn’t phase her at all. she danced by clapping and moving her head and her torso a little bit.
CARYS – was the big surprise. she cried at the beginning when the music changed over to a louder song, but soon stopped. she was the first to dance, and danced the most exuberantly! she was on her hands and knees and was rocking back and forth grinning happily quite often. if we prompted her with a simple, "dance, carys!" she would rock away. she was surprisingly friendly to other people there, giving them her special nose wrinkle smile.
at the too soon end of the class, we sang a goodbye song (she played the guitar) and then each parent was given a CD of the songs we would be singing this session, and to play them often for their babies, to familiarise them with the music. we have played the music twice today and i feel sick of the tunes already.
of course, the perfection of the class was slightly marred at the end when the instructor came up to me and said, "i think there is a mistake!" yes, turns out we were signed up for the 11.30 class….ai-yi-yi. she was tres cool about it and assured me the 11.30 class is not as full as this one.
it was a lovely being there with the kids. not only is this the beginning of their integration into the toddler world, and good for them…but it is good for me to integrate my mindset from "precious"* babies to happy toddlers.
(this isn’t to say that two of the three didn’t vomit upon our arrival home, one of them all over their sheets. or that i didn’t feel terror upon learning that a girl in sebastian’s class has been diagnosed with scarlet fever.)
* australian definition, meaning easily harmed, must be treated gently, tendencies to fall ill.
