Who's In Charge?

Here we go again. Same chaos different Holiday! This time around, the singing adults consisted of the Sunday 6:00 choir and the children were from the 11:00 children’s choir. It is an awesome idea to combine the choirs for one of the Christmas masses so that the children will feel appreciated by the congregation as well as the adult members. Of course there is a BUT here!

Our music coordinator was not very coordinated in my opinion. Please humor me while I justify how I believe I’m able to give my opinion and someone actually believe in what I say and not think I’m only whining. I have been part of many different bands and choirs for the past 33 years. I have played trumpet throughout the United States and Europe in concert and jazz bands including 1^st chair and soloist. As an undergraduate, I also played flute, clarinet, and piano. I have also been part of concert choirs, madrigal choirs, church choirs, and community choirs as a soprano including being a soloist as an undergraduate. My education in music was as a performer and not as a teacher, but my experience gave me the opportunity as a child to work with adults, and as a young adult (Rochelle’s favorite words!) and adult to work with children. Many of these roles were considered professional, others were volunteer, and of course those as a student.

Now, as a child or student working with adults, I was challenged with music slightly above my level of play, but within reach. The music I read was clearly at my level of musicianship. I do not remember feeling out of my realm when it came to reading the music or understanding the music lingo therefore causing me to just give up. As an adult working with children, I remember the musical numbers performed were always those most common so that the children recognized the melodies and felt that they were able to perform their very best.

Back to the present. Practice tonight for the Christmas Eve mass was extremely frustrating for all participants. The children were out of control. They didn’t have a leader to follow. There were many adults telling them what to do (including parents), which was very confusing. The children didn’t have all the songs that we were going to perform, and the ones they had were out of order. These children were not old enough to be given general directions and be expected to follow them. The majority of the children needed hand held. The adults were extremely thankful that our choir director (not the music coordinator) took it upon himself to have folders with the songs we were singing ready for us. Please keep in mind that rehearsal began at 6:00pm and we didn’t actual start rehearsing until about 7:00pm. By this time the children were so restless that there really was no way to bring them back to reality.

During each song, the music coordinator did his job by explaining tempos, repeats, codas, and so forth, but if you do not have an education in music, you will not understand this language. This is like a foreign language and must be taught in steps and not just thrown out there and expected to be understood. Well, the adults were ok, but the children were lost. Many of these children are in kindergarten or first grade and are having a hard time reading much less understanding some of the Latin terms our leader was using. These children had no clue what was going on. They gave up and starting acting out to remind us that they were there and needed attention. As I mentioned before, these children needed taken by the hand and lead through the songs. This didn’t happen and the kids were lost. How unfortunate for these children to lose what could be a very valuable experience for them. What was even more disturbing to me is that this coordinator is actually the choir director for the children’s choir! Yikes.

I personally believe that our coordinator has been brainwashed by a couple of the Sunday morning choir members and he believes that he must show that he is better than or knows more than the Sunday evening choir. Ok, I’m evil! We are a volunteer choir and the experience and music education varies amongst everyone, but when put together instead of pitting against one another, we are awesome no matter which choir we belong to.

Our choir can only be as good as it's leader, and as long as this coordinator is going to lead…….I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

I guess I can add a ps…..the instrumentalists didn’t know that they must transpose their music. I'm not sure how far along they are in their school program or what grade they are in, but someone needs to do that for them. My guess would be the coordinator needs to take responsibility here. I did notice that our (6:00 choir) director did ask them not to play when he noticed the problem. I thank him for that.

Group hug everybody!!!!!!

Work Ethics

Hmm? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, work ethics is a set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. What has brought this on you ask? Let me tell you!

I received a telephone call from my neighbor about 8:30 one morning. She asked if I was aware that a truck was parked on the side of our house (we are a corner house) blocking our RV gate. Our neighbor was concerned because this particular street seems to be a chosen drop off place for stolen vehicles. I called crime stop to report an abandoned vehicle so that it could be towed away. I also called my dear hubby because he was on duty (he is a police officer) and hoped that he could use some type of professional courtesy or something like that to speed up the process. I know, very tacky of me but I did it anyway. I’m glad I did!

A police officer showed up within 30 minutes which impressed me because this is a low priority call and I wasn’t expecting anyone for a couple hours or so. During this time, my husband messaged this guy and asked him to call because he knew that this officer was known for begin lazy and not wanting to do anything that required some type of effort on his part. My husband had to convince him to do his job! This officer didn’t want to do anything but put a red tag on the window and after so many days if the owner doesn’t claim it the truck would be towed. Well, according to dear hubby this could be reported as a possible stolen and the truck would then be impounded thus taken off our street.

I, as the citizen that reported a possible crime, wanted the result of my complaint to be the removal of the truck from my street. To accomplish this type of result and make the citizens this officer works for happy, he would have to do some paper work which would be somewhat time consuming, but part of his job. This officer actually told my husband that he was just a lazy man and didn’t want to do any extra work! Needless to say, within 2 hours after I made the original call to crime stop the truck was towed.

This officer and those people in other customer service professions that choose this work ethic need to understand they need to conform to the elements of the environment they work in, or transfer to an environment that envelopes their beliefs. This is the person that is always asking why they are passed up for that promotion, or why the majority of complaints concern them.

I have had this type of experience dealing with offices that are from both the private sector and the public sector, so we can’t blame this on being a government employee!

Help I'm Hurting

Fibromyalgia…ugh! I know there is nothing anyone can do to help with the pain. I only ask that you be patient with me and understanding when I bite your head off! Yea, that is a lot to ask. Pain sucks. I’ve been up for the past 2 hours (it is now 6:30am) and 1600mg of ibuprophen has not taken an edge off the pain. We might need to move up to vicodin! I started feeling the flare, if you will, coming on day before yesterday when clouds started making their appearance and I started losing my grip. Last night was not doing well at all. When I’m in pain, I lose all train of thought, start going in circles, and really just become a total bitch. This is called fibro fog.

I feel the majority of the pain in my shoulders and it feels so good to sit in the spa and let the jets massage that area. However, cold hurts me and now that it is cool outside when I step out of the spa, I’m back to ugly pain again. This, in my fibro mind, defeats the purpose of sitting in the spa.

For the most part, I’m usually a person thinking that my glass is half full, but during this pain I’m pretty sure that my glass is half empty. This fibro experience reminds me of the cycle of domestic violence. Right now I’m in the abusive phase knowing that the honeymoon phase should start soon, but I don’t know when!

Giving Thanks

I was reminded for the umpteenth time that I am really blessed with my wonderful husband and beautiful children. We had our annual Family Thanksgiving Gathering at my sister in-law’s house and found the atmosphere to be very tense and uncomfortable. My mother (she has shared her day with us for the past 3 years) and her friend (he attended for the first time this year) felt totally out-of-place almost to the point of being unwelcome. This is so unusual for our family to emit this type of atmosphere because all of us have always been so accepting of anyone no matter what their station in life is.

My husband and daughters stepped in to make my mother’s friend feel a part of the family and celebration. Each of my girls stepped in without any prodding to bring happiness and fun to their younger cousins’ day. I have to thank my daughters for accepting that there are family issues present that their much younger cousins are reacting too and that nothing said or done is meant to be personal. Most of all thank you for not asking why and trying to attach blame.

My family jumped in on an invisible cue and made this day of thanks one to feel good about not one to regret.

By the way……

We started our day out by attending Mass with three of us participating with the combined church choir. Oh my! Thank you Mike for being the leader of the Sunday 6:00 choir. I have not witnessed such disorganization, starlet pouting, and more with a community choir than I did for this Mass. Of course, I’ve only been involved with the combined choir experience when Mike has been in charge! I’m hoping that the person who was in charge for this Mass allowed this chaos only because he is still very new to our parish and hasn’t learned the dynamics of each of the choirs and how to meld them together during holiday celebrations. Good luck for Christmas masses.

Volleyball

Eight weeks of practice on Tuesday nights and Thursday evenings and of course the match on Saturdays has come to an end until the first week of December when we start all over again. These kids did wonderful. The team consisted of four 7^th graders and 6 6^th graders. This was the first time any of these kids played competitive volleyball through the YMCA. They had a season losing record of 1 and 7 and they did lose the first game of the single elimination tournament this morning, but their attitudes were positive and they had fun. The coaches have done wonders with these kids teaching them the fundamentals of the sport in a way that kept the kids interest.

The winter season begins December 9 and The Bear hounded me until I showed her the receipt confirming her registration! This child had not played volleyball until last summer with the YMCA’s recreational league. She enjoyed it enough to try out for the team at school. She didn’t make the team, but did make it through two weeks of tryouts and three cuts before she was let go. Go Bears!

Thank you big sisters for practicing with the baby!

Pat on the Back

Finally sitting down crocheting, watching the Suns after some 7^th grade science homework and a lesson in the probable thought process of a runaway pregnant teenager in hopes to dissuade my oldest twin from being manipulated into covering for this teenager. Fortunately my girls feel comfortable talking to me and David about many problems or issues they may encounter. David and I have earned this trust by listening to them, not judging them, and guiding them to work out a solution they understand and are for the most part comfortable with. (My last two statements can be a whole blog by themselves!)

Rochelle was sitting with me typing away on her laptop, the other 3 girls burrowing in their respective bedrooms, and David at work. Rochelle and I were somewhat mulling over this evenings happenings. We somehow ended up talking about how some parents speak to their children as though they are friends and discuss adult topics with them sometimes asking for advice. I learned that this type of parent/child contact was a reality and not only on TV after I started working with CPS cases. How we ended up talking about this I don’t really know, but I made a comment about how the twins were very close to flunking both years of middle school. Rochelle interrupted me and said that she didn’t realize that the twins could have flunked middle school. She showed genuine surprise with this knowledge!

Thank you Rochelle for one of the most wonderful complements and acknowledgments of good parenting skills a parent can receive. We are a very close family and generally know when one of us is hurting, and I guess David and I did a wonderful job working through this problem with the twins and keeping this issue from affecting Rochelle and Audrey. Go Mom and Dad!!!!!

Halloween

Halloween was full of excitement. All six of us were home for the evening! This is a rare event. The twins set up outside with pizza, sodas, movies, and of course a hugh tub of candy to wait for trick-or-treaters. They had two of their friends helping (?!?) them. They rented Ring Two and Sleepy Hollow, but I don’t think they actually watched the movies because they found it more exciting to entertain the poor unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. It was about 9:00 when the girls came inside because the candy was gone. I should say that the candy not horded by the girls for later! Actually they did very well at not eating more candy than they gave out.

Our oldest took our youngest trick-or-treating as part of a group with our neighbors. She brought home about half a pillowcase worth of candy! Now our tub is once again full, ugh. Of course, there is a message on the bag of candy stating who the candy belongs to and that permission is required prior to eating any. I have no doubt that the tone is a very threatening one. I see my future now from about 3:30 on, because the older girls will take and hide a good portion of the candy. When the 12 year old sees that candy has disappeared she is going to throw a royal fit (her title is “Queen Audrey” around the house), and the older girls will look at her with extremely innocent expressions and tell her that they didn’t eat it, so they didn’t have to ask her permission to remove the candy. Life can be so rough for the youngest child!

We did have the cutest trick-or-treater last night. She is just shy of being 2 years old and was dressed like a cowgirl. She was wonderful! It brought back memories of my oldest when she was that age because she too was a cowgirl. My oldest would say cowboy-girl and would wear her boot with everything. It was a fight to take them off! I’m not saying that the child is stubborn beyond belief, however…….I’m sure that the 2 year old visiting us last night cooperates with her parents and causes no parental distress!

Overall, it was fun to sit back and watch the interaction of the all the girls with the multi-culture of trick-or-treaters from the range of ages to known friends to strangers. Hmmm, even though we had to bring them back to task a few times, maybe the girls were listening as their father and I were attempting to teach manners and so on!

Once a Mom always a Mom?

Here go the tears again. After 22 years, one would think that I would have accepted the attitude or choices made by my in-laws toward my children. No, I haven't because I'm the one who has to look at the disappointment on their faces and answer the question why. Are my feelings hurt by my in-law’s actions, or are these tears because I cannot keep my children from the disappointments of life? On the other hand, am I causing my children's reaction by showing my feelings toward the choices of my in-laws?

A little history......

For the past 23 years I have tolerated and supported my husband being an obvious 2nd choice to his sister in his parent’s life. The actions made by my in-laws to make me choose the word obvious will be saved for another post! My older children, now aged 20,17, and 17 were born first then my sister in-law’s first child was born 2 weeks after my youngest child who are now 12 yrs old. For about 15 years, my in-laws lived in their motor home and traveled from national parks to state parks and so on working for their space rental and really to support themselves. They would park at our house for a couple months in the winter and this is when they would bond, as they called it, with my older children. Of course, the children were not allowed to go to the motor home any time they wished, but only at set times that were strictly enforced by my mother in-law according to my father in-law. It is very difficult to explain to 3 year olds and a 5 year old why they can't go to Grandma's house when their house is parked in our yard! However, there are beautiful memories that my older children have of these times and love to talk about them.

Now enters my sister in-law’s oldest child and my youngest child. My children were dropped hard and fast and were replaced by sister in-law’s oldest child. My youngest child never had a chance. (This choice made my in-laws was supported and has been kept extremely healthy by my sister in-law for the past 12 years.) Yikes, how does one explain why grandma and grandpa don't come to visit us anymore and we only see them if we are invited to their Aunts house? There was always some excuse by my in-laws to decline any invitation that we extended unless it involved a BBQ with all the relatives.

In the past year, an invitation to attend my daughter's 12th birthday party was declined because grandpa was tired. Well two weeks later, the in-laws attended the other grandchild’s 12th birthday party and this cousin told my 12 year old "ha ha grandma and grandpa are here for my party and didn’t go to yours". Nice kid or should I say wonderful parenting? I come to find out after this incident that these comments are not the first. My youngest then tells her older sisters that she has been putting up with this for a long time from all of the cousins who range in age from 12 years old to 3 years old. My older girls were fit to be tied not to mention my desired reaction when I heard this. I didn't do anything other than try to smooth my daughters ruffled feathers and let the older girls loose to protect their baby sister! My husband asked me many years ago to overlook his parent’s actions, so I did because it appeared that my older girls were content with their relationship with his parents. That request is now mute because our oldest is over 18 and the twins are only a few months shy of 18. They have been taught to confront the person that they have issues with to resolve these issues instead of letting them fester. I, because of the request by my husband, kept the girls from confronting their grandparents in prior years but that is no longer the case. This has and will make for very interesting family gatherings!

My parents are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. They have treated my children and my brothers’ children as equally as possible considering that I live in a different state than they do. My brothers and my parents (now only my mother as my father passed away 5 years ago) live in the same city so my parents had more readily access to their other grandchild than they did to my children. However, that didn't keep them from being as involved in my children's lives as they were in my nieces and nephews lives. I do realize that my parents retired many years ago and did travel at will. My mother still lives this same very active life style. My father in-law is 80 plus years with old age health issues and my mother in-law is 64 years old and still working and will probably still work for at least another 6 years.

Back to the present.......

Yesterday, was a marching band competition involving on of my twins. She is a senior in high school and this is the last year that we will see her in band. I gave my in-laws including my sister in-law the football games and competitions she would be performing at so that they can see her perform. Of course, there are excuses for not attending which really doesn't disappoint me. What I find hurtful and see it in the expressions of my girls is that grandpa is too tired to support my daughters but not too tired to baby-sit with my sister in-laws very young and active children (remember her kids are aged 3 years to 12 years).

Am I causing my children's disappointment and therefore their pain by trying to include their grandparents in their lives? Maybe I'm trying to build a closeness with my in-laws and sister in-law that I no longer have with my mother and brothers because they live out of state and my in-laws are not buying it. Wow, now that’s a thought!