Keeping it all in perspective

I have been trying my best to be observant of my surroundings.  When I see something of interest, something that doesn't seem to belong, or perhaps there is just something of any sort sitting there waiting to be noticed, I try to do just that.

Another one of my goals has been to improve the communication between my children and understand where they are coming from better.  One of my boys has been diagnosed with high functioning autism and I am pretty sure that at least one of my other kids would be if I felt like he needed label.  This motivates me to share what I observe with them.  Some of the other kids talk more than I do and so there is a bit of competition there.  More than just the sic kids trying to get a turn to talk or avoid getting told to talk.  We strive for taking turns fairly but I still want to be the mom and be in charge so it doesn't always work out.  There's got to be a balance there somehow, but that's for another story.

The other day we were driving to the music store in search of four new instruments for my quadruplets to learn to play.  They were excited and I was nervous.  Considering all my goals, I looked for a distraction and conversation. 

We stopped at a red light and I was impressed to find a beautiful new sports car next to us.  The shine of the wheels made me think I should replace that missing hubcap on our rusting suburban.  As I compared the two vehicles the thought occurred to me that it might be nice for the kids to notice what a nice thing looks like and maybe spark in them the desire to do something with their lives that could afford them a few luxuries.

I said to them, "Wow.  Look at that cool car!  It's so fancy.  I think it's a corvette."

The responses began, "Where?" But they were quickly interrupted and diverted.

"Oh, WOW!  Look at that!"  My son shouted.  It was a bigger response than I expected, but he continued shouting, "That garbage truck over there!  It's painted like a tiger!"

Everyone looked at the tiger garbage truck and ignored the money sitting next to us at the red light.

This lesson was pretty direct for me.  I don't need to find expensive things.  I need to find interesting things.  I don't need to be fancy.  I need to be fun.

We spent hours in the store looking at everything while I repeated, "Don't touch the drums. Stop touching the drums.  Did you not hear me ask your sibling to stop touching the drums?"  I wondered why I took them all there.  Then I wondered why I was still there.  After filling out the never ending paperwork and having the credit check that I didn't realize was needed to learn to play an instrument, I wondered why I didn't just take them all home and come back later without them.   But I stayed. We all stayed. The miracle was that the only one in the store getting flustered with my kids was me.

They got more excited and I got more nervous.  Would they be able to pay attention to a teacher and learn to play an instrument when we struggled so much to stand in a line?

A few hours later we placed the newly acquired trumpet, saxophone, viola, and cello with their accompanying music books and other supplies next to the piano at home.  Since I had signed the papers with half of my brain worrying about what the kids were going to touch next, I pulled out the paperwork and looked at it.  My heart stopped for a moment as I realized what had happened.

I had just brought home over $5,000 worth of equipment and I expected to hand it over to my nine-year-old kids to go play at school.

I was still standing there with the lump in my throat when my husband got home from work.  He greeted me with a kiss and said, "Let's see what you got!"  He was just as excited as the kids were.  Of course we had not discussed the foolish expense and expectations that I had just realized.  The only thing we talked about before were the benefits of playing an instrument and which ones we could not bear to listen to while they learned how to make them sound good.

I swallowed hard and started to tell him the story so he too could be enlightened of our foolishness. When I asked him, "Why didn't I just leave?"  He put his hands on my shoulders to steady me and said, "You stayed and got them the instruments because you love them and it will be fun."

I couldn't believe I had already forgotten the lesson I learned.  I need to be fun and not worry about what the money so much. Sheesh.  To think I wanted them to notice and desire expensive things  while at the same time forgetting we were already doing that.

Learning a lesson and incorporating the lesson are very different things.
 
For now I am going to see how many garbage trucks I can find that are painted like a tiger.  Tomorrow I might get brave enough to let the kids open their instruments and look at them.  Maybe in a few more days I will let them touch them too.