Shh...Don't Tell Dad.

Last week the Dog Walker burst through the door and headed straight to the small bathroom by the mudroom. Now that isn’t a strange thing for him to do when he has been at school all day, but this time was different. I heard the pocket door of the bathroom close and then open again. He walked back into the kitchen with the goofiest grin on his face. "What?" I asked. "You’ll see," he said mysteriously, still grinning like a hyena. Then he headed off in search of his sisters. 

Disney's The Lion King

 A few minutes later they all came bursting through the kitchen and into the mudroom. Again, the pocket door closed and opened. Then a bunch of girls giggled. "Don’t tell Dad," Princess said. "He’ll have a fit," the Prima Donna agreed. That was enough for me, I headed to the mudroom. "What are you guys doing?" I asked suspiciously. The Dog Walker grinned and pulled open the pocket door. A huge picture of Justin Bieber stared back at me. This guy was taking over my world! 

Last Friday on April Fool’s Day, Princess sent me a text in the middle of the day which was pretty strange since she was at school. It read, "Look at the school’s website!" So I pulled up the site, but instead of the normal school name, it said, "South Justin Bieber School." Every window on the home page had an article or picture or announcement about Justin Bieber. Curly came wandering in while I was scrolling through the various pictures and trivia. "Who is that?" I asked him. He squinted at the screen with a thoughtful glint in his eye. "Harry Potter!" he announced. Then before I could say anything, he said, "Or Justin Bieber," then again, "Or Harry Potter…" Apparently he is the only one in the world who mixes them up. 

My 14-year-old Princess is rather smitten with Justin Bieber. The Dog Walker also thinks he is amazing...to the point that my sweetie made the name Justin Bieber a swear word in our house for a while. Uttering his name could give you an extra job. So the Dog Walker gave him the code name "JB." 

This morning I went over to Bossy’s house to take Burrito to school. (They have been having car troubles.) I clicked him into the carseat next to Baby Doll. "I want to sing her a song!" he announced. "OK," I said. He looked at me like I was totally daft. "I need some music," he said. I climbed in the driver’s seat and switched on the CD player. The Dog Walker’s CD was still in. The opening strains of JB’s "Baby," song started up. 

"That’s a good song," I said. "It’s about a baby." Burrito harumphed from the back seat. "That’s a girl song," he said. "Well, Baby Doll is a girl," I said reasonably. He snorted again. "But I can’t sing a GIRL song," he said. Just then the chorus, "Baby Baby Baby Oh," came on. "Hey!" I heard from the backseat. "Curly sings that song!" "You’re right," I said, "and he’s a boy." He let that sink in for about 10 seconds and then I heard his happy little voice singing at the top of his lungs, "Baby Baby Baby Oh!" 

Artsy-Fartsy

I think I’ve mentioned before that I am from a small town in Utah. That effectively makes me a "hick." I’m not exactly sure where that term came from, but I do know that it means I’m pretty uncultured. (Remember I do have a church pew in my living room and I couldn’t possibly park even one car in my three-car garage. I also like to plant tomatoes and cabbages in my front flowerbeds.)

I’m not a fan of artsy-fartsy classical concerts, operas or the ballet unless I know one or more of the performers. I’ve even been known to ask my sweetie to wake me up when one of our kids comes on stage. I tend to prefer loud basketball and football games (it’s hard to sleep during those), big family parties, and chaos in general. In an effort to have my kids not become hicks we encourage (Princess would say force) our children to do all kinds of musical, cultured artsy-fartsy things.

We sign them all up for a couple of years of dance. We figure even if it gives them a little more grace on the football field it is worth the effort. In our house we can’t really afford piano lessons so we require several years of band in elementary and middle school. I currently have three children playing musical instruments in various public school bands. The Dog Walker happens to be one of them. He has been playing the trumpet for five years and I thought he was finally absorbing a little culture. We wouldn’t want him to grow up like us without an appreciation for the finer things in life!

As a member of the marching band, the Dog Walker was required to watch the rest of the bands perform. If you’ve never seen a marching band competition, you would be amazed at the amount of "art" that has been inflicted into John Phillips Sousa. For this particular show they were even tossing French flags. My son was not impressed. He sent a text, "We are watching some dumb music show." The annoyance came through loud and clear. Since he was at a marching band competition that seemed pretty obvious. "What’s the show?" He paused for only a second and then my autistic son who always spells unfamiliar words phonetically punched out the reply, "Lame is." I guess there’s no hope for any of us.

Dancing with the Stars

Every once in a while an opportunity comes along in our lives for something that is just amazingly cool! That happened to us last spring. You all know that I have a bunch of dancers in my family (I’m not sure why, I have two left feet. I don’t even have natural grace on the basketball court.) Princess and the Prima Donna are both on pointe (which is a fancy way of saying they can officially dance on their toes). The Dog Walker even dances in a ballet once a year, need it or not. Sport takes a boys’ ballet class once a week and is about to make his debut in a real ballet in a couple of weeks. But this is a story about Crafty. 

At 10 years old, she has been dancing for most of her life and I mean that literally. When she was barely two, she and I would sit at the dance studio and watch Princess and Prima Donna take creative ballet and tap classes. She wasn’t so interested in the ballet, but she loved the tap! So I gave her an old pair of tap shoes that no longer fit the other girls and she started wearing them to the studio. It wasn’t long before she was trying to mimic the steps while the other girls danced. Soon the teacher noticed and suggested that she just join the class (all of the other girls were between the ages of 4 and 6). We bought her a tiny costume and she performed in the Spring Recital with all of those other kids. She was perfectly in step with the teacher the entire time even though her shoes were about three sizes too big. They didn't even make shoes small enough to fit her tiny feet. 

Fast forward a few years. They had an audition for a show that was to take place in a major venue on the Wasatch Front. No, it was not the Nutcracker and Ballet West, Princess did that. This was an exclusive show with the Transfusion Hype group. They needed about 5 kids to perform a hip-hop dance in their show. Crafty auditioned for one of the parts and beat out both of her older sisters. She was 8 years old and performing with adults in a show that cost $16.00/ticket. They filled the house every evening of the performance so I guess people thought it was worth the money. 

Transfusion Hype

Back to last spring…someone approached our studio looking for girls who were willing to participate in a music video. Crafty’s class was chosen and she was about to become famous. They spent many hours in rehearsal and then finally in filming. Sadly, some of the girls were not allowed to dance but were filmed watching the other girls. Since we are still trying to be incognito, I can’t tell you which one is my little Crafty, but you can probably figure it out on your own since (in my humble opinion) she is the best dancer! Take a minute and watch this fun music video made for a real band as it appears on YouTube. We think she is amazingly cool.

Bon Jovi

Image by Christian Frarey

You already know I’m old and I wear bifocals, so it shouldn’t surprise you when I say that I remember when MTV began! I didn’t see the original broadcast of "Video Killed the Radio Star" in 1981, but by 1985 my sweetie and I were fans (for a few years anyway). 

I graduated from high school in 1983 and married that same year, so I was still very young and very much a fan of rock ‘n roll music. When Bossy was born in 1984, Jon Bon Jovi was working really hard to promote his new band. In 1986 they released the album "Slippery When Wet." Bossy was 2 years old and absolutely smitten with Jon. She wanted to be just like him when she grew up! MTV was different then. It was the equivalent of watching the Wiggles or Yo Gabba Gabba or maybe even PBS. Most videos were pretty wholesome with the bands performing their songs or a story made from the song. Even the costuming was pretty tame. 

It was like YouTube except that you couldn’t just pick whatever song you wanted to hear at any given moment. We didn’t own a VCR because we were in school and they cost about $400.00. Most people still rented them from the video store along with the movies they wanted to watch. So MTV was amazing, but you had to hang around and wait for your song to play. And when it did, Bossy would come running! 

Her favorite song was "Livin’ on a Prayer." She had worn out jeans with holes in the knees, cowboy boots, and big hair just like Jon’s. If you’ve never seen that video, take four minutes for a guilty 80s pleasure:

Did you like how they strap harnesses on the band members and they fly out over the audience while they are singing? Well, Bossy didn’t have a harness, but she had a Daddy! He would fly her all over the living room with both of them singing, "Whoa-oh livin’ on a prayer…!" at the tops of their lungs. (She was a lot smaller then…) That was almost 25 years ago and my kids still love this song! 

I’m about to shamelessly promote a fun music video on YouTube that reminded me of those early days of MTV. I’ve been told that these movies have been created in hopes of winning free tickets to the upcoming Bon Jovi concert. Please take a minute and click on this link and support these kids. Maybe it will drag you back to the 80s too. You might just feel an insane desire to rat out your hair and rip out the knees in your jeans. Just remember; Jon Bon Jovi has plenty of money to replace his!