Sometimes I Love Kids, Sometimes I Hate Kids

It appears that sleep will continue to escape me. Even though reconnecting with Source has provided me with better sleep, it appears that the Devil has conspired against me. I say Devil in a figurative sense because I do not believe he exists (topic of a future post). However, I give him credit for this torture because the perpetrators have to at least be his spawn. Who and what am I talking about?

The two sons of the my landlord’s fiancé have move in to the apartment above me. Their room happens to be right above mine. They are ages 3 and 5 and it seems that their mother feeds them a diet of liquid speed. The routinely wake up between 7:00 and 7:15 AM, at time when I am still asleep particularly on weekends, and immediately proceed to engage in what sounds like World Cup Soccer, but with bowling balls, complete with screams and yells. The 3 year old, I am guessing that it is him because his voice is high pitched, will often yell what I take to be his version of “GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!” for amazing lengths of time. I find it incredible that someone so little can produce that much sound without taking a breath.

Every now and then, which means once every ten minutes, there will be a loud thud. I imagine this is the 5 year old body checking the 3 year old as he drives the bowling ball towards the goal net. These thundering, house-shaking booms are compounded by the fact that my head is only a foot and a half from the ceiling. This was something that I had considered a problem when I was building my loft. The Devil-Spawn had not moved in yet and I didn’t know that they would be right on top of me.

Their mother isn’t any better. I hear her walking in the apartment upstairs as if she was standing next to me. From her heavy footfalls I can determine the following:
1) she has watermelon size breasts that are made of lead,
2) she wear high heels at 8:00 in the morning and said heels have a built-in jack-hammer pump, and/or
3) she is a silicon-based life form, thereby having a higher body density, instead of carbon-based like you and I.

I determine the third because it is inhumanly possible to sound that heavy when she is a fairly regularly sized woman. Either that or it is reason number 1. I have not seen her in anything other than sweaters so I am only guessing on the size and make up of breasts. Again, it just a conjecture on my part as I don’t know where she is keeping her tons of weight. She has a shapely body so that is my only guess. And I know it is the mother that is walking in the heels in the morning, and not the landlord, because, even though it sounds like she weighs what her weight would be on Jupiter, she still has a dainty lady-like gait.

So I have not had much pleasant sleep lately. Ear plugs have not helped as these kids seem to create sound louder than an AC/DC concert. It has only been a week since they moved in and already I want to kill them. Or at least introduce them to my friend Mr. Chloroform.

Now to provide contrast I’d like to introduce you to my newest guitar student, Maya. Maya is 8 and ¾ (she made a distinct point to mention that) and she has ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder). That said, in three weeks she has become one of my best students ever.

Maya is a flower child. I didn’t think there were any left, nor did I think that anymore were being born. She comes wearing pink paisley pants and an arsty hat. She lives in her own creative world. And she has an excitement and joy about playing that is intoxicating.

What makes Maya truly special is that she writes her own songs. At our second lesson, where I was worried she would not have gotten down the two simplest chords (E minor & A minor) I taught her the week before because of her ADHD, not only did she have those chords down pat she brought in a song called “Magic Land.” that was a perfect tool for me to teach the new chords (G, C, & D Major). Granted, “Magic Land” was incredibly simplistic and had happy cows, dancing ballerinas and a castle floating in the clouds but it as a coherent piece of music/poetry.

This past week she came with two songs along with having really nailing the three chords I had taught her the week before. Like “Magic Land,” she would sing the melody and I would put the chords underneath it and then teach her those chords. One of the songs I am still laughing about now. The song was called “Kate”, written about one of her friends. It went something like,

“Kate, Kate, Kate, she has a pearly gate
and she has 17 dates!
Kate, Kate, Kate,
Now she has finger-paint.”

I laugh because I was supposed to meet with a girl named Kate this past Sunday, but plans obviously fell through as I didn’t hear from her. This is the second time in the two months that a “date” with a girl named Kate or Katie has fell through. Now I know why, she had 16 other dates to work around that day! Well, I am happy that she now has finger-paint so she can at least paint me a letter telling me she can’t make it next time.

Maya leaves the lesson so excited. She truly is a joy to teach. What really got me was what she said to her dad as the left the music school the first day.

“So Maya, how did you like your first guitar lesson?”

“I loved it. This is the best day of my life!!”

Thank you, Maya. Thank you. You , and students like you, are the reason I love teaching music. I just hope that I am not too tired next Saturday morning for our lesson because of the hellions upstairs.