Typical day with a Piano

So we finally got a piano. I was very sceptical at first, the expense, the size and the fact that no one in the household knows how to use it. My only leap of faith for the present was that I learn how to type, I learned to control all of the fingers of my right and left hand, If I did that, learning to play the piano is just the next logical step in the same direction.

There is the bigger fact that we used educational funds for our children to purchase the piano. The piano is really for them. I look forward to singing their nursery rhymes along with the piano. Then their first lessons. Then hopefully a great skill, personal development and great enjoyment.

So now that we have a piano, how is life different. Actually I think life is different because Sarah has a job. On Thursday's and Friday's the kids are dropped off in creche and Sarah works at the water studies lab. Work is pretty drab, doing experiments and analysis for outside customers but it suits perfectly. It is easy for her to disconnect from the job, she is just down the road so she can go out and feed Matilda, and there are some procedure optimisations in the lab that Sarah already has her eye on.

So the job started a couple of weeks ago and at a similar time so did Sarah's regular washing of dishes after dinner. I usually do not even notice as she collects dishes, washes and rinses, wipes down bench tops, everything is ready for the next day. I swear I have been promoting this kind of order for years and finally I have it, wonderful.

The rest of the day fits around this as only it can. Wednesday night dishes, lights out everyone is in bed. Thursday morning is bike ride for me so alarm at 5:00 am and I am out by 5:30 am. Sarah has the radio come on at 5:45 and by quarter past six the kids are up. Half past Sarah has an alarm to make sure she is up.

I presume that Matilda at this time is like a dream, all smiles, crawling around and happy. Felix no doubt sneaks in a 5 minute whinge about "nana" which he gets but at designated times. Sarah loves feeding Felix from the breast but she can only do so much if he asks non stop, and in such a whinge.

The rest I presume also runs like clock work, creche bags are ready, kids get dressed, breaky and they are at uni by half past seven. Wow this is the Sarah that I used to know. I always knew she needs some time guidance and work is best. She also seems to have found some guidance in being more open in her sexuality.

The day is full of frantic calls from me to see what she is up to unfortunately
they are all futile as her phone has discharged. I get a reminder call at five that it is time to go. I get home at six and see that they are all there, a little bit tired from their days. By now it is usually couch time with a book and imagination is low. I do not even get a chance to get changed and it is time
to put dinner on the table. I feed Matilda and on the side eat a whole half
cantaloupe. Again I over ate for lunch so I am trying to under compensate.

I look at the piano, it says play me now. I can not wait to put my fingers on the keys. Strike down hard and here the sound, then try to play as quietly as I can. "Michael you clean up and I will bath with the kids" OK, I do not mind washing dishes. So I clear the table, try and wipe the food of the table cover
from the last week, give the kids chairs a once over and get started on sweeping the floor. I have not even started with the washing and Sarah is already saying that she is planning on finishing up in the bath. I hurry, it is crucial I do not get distracted. If the kids get out I may need to stop and help Sarah, that could mean not finishing the dishes and getting told off by Sarah tomorrow. It may make her late for work.

I firmly say "No". I keep washing trying to make sure I finish. Some harder oven trays and the electric grill which the dogs have already licked clean. I am done. Sarah and the kids are also out but some how I was not required at the other end of the house. Now for the piano.

I go and play a little. Soon there is Felix looking for someone to play with and Sarah trying to read a book in bed where Tilda is happily crawling around on the bed no where near ready for sleep. I decide that this is ridiculous and invite everyone into the living room. I get back to the piano and everyone else seems satisfied for a while. Felix wants to join me. No he wants to have exclusive access to the piano, typical Felix. I get a dining table chair but he is not impressed. Sarah joins us an tries to teach him chop sticks.

I tell her that in only 3 sessions I am already playing things with both hands. Sarah agrees and tries out some pieces. I encourage her to start at the start of the book. No I tell her. I think this is so easy if you just follow the steps. I start to wonder how far I could have got if I started this as a kid. If only I had the foresight of following steps when I was a kid. Anyway, this allows me to feel like a kid right here right now. I hope I have other child like dreams saved up for future decades.

Sarah gets through a few exercises and invites me to play some more. No she will recite a book about a cat, cousin of hairy McLairy I think. Tilda cannot take it anymore, she is tired, screams, I pick her up, put her in an ergo carrier, start pacing around the dark rooms of the house. I feel sorry for Sarah, she wants to read the story to do the best for the kids, but Tilda's tiredness breaks the family bond, I am distracted.

I am back on the piano. Tilda on my back. Soon Sarah and Felix go to bed, I run through all my pieces again. Good timing. Sarah is in bed before nine again. I thought she should do some programming, I am planning for her to learn Ruby, MySQL and Rails to build a web app to serve as a contacts database for the toy library. It is good she is in bed, tomorrow will work out for her. She runs in the morning, I get the kids ready. Hopefully I will wake first and get some time in on the piano. I have also a bike race to get ready for, clothes, food, not forgetting my helmet.

I like typing on my laptop, now with a new battery. I have it on my lap simply to highlight I have no cords attached, it is battery powered again. The previous
battery had died down to only thirty seconds of charge. The laptop is old but still serves the purpose as a type writer. Type writer, I have one of those, I just need a ribbon, I like typing on it. Ahh but most of all I want to play the piano.

good night.

bla-lu-lu-lu another word

Well this is another word, and an old one. Actually it is a word I taught Felix and probably one of the first non standard words he learned. We were both nude after a bath. I started running around the house making a blu-lu-lu sound with my toung flicking in and out of my mouth. Felix copied. Next day when he saw me naked for bath, he made that same noise. For a few months following he made the same noise and also ran around the house nude after a wash. Matilda was still in utero at that stage.

Well It's monday morning and we have had an eventfull weekend. Felix must have mentioned the blu-lu-lu word for me to have written about it above even though it is not part of his normal vocabulary. We went down to Geelong on Sunday for Sarah to train for the upcomming Mars Ballarat to Barwon Heads challenge. She got into the lake but could not find the channel to lead her to Barwon Heads. She decided that it is time to give up, and give up the whole Mars thing, at least for another year.

I was with the kids in Barwon Heads. We went down to the river to fish. There were plenty of people with lines out but only a couple of gents that seemed to be catching some near size limit whiting. On my surf rod, with felix always wanting to wind it in or through some white bait into the water we had no luck. Well we were lucky to find some bark for Matlida to crawl around on and she did not even get hooked by any hooks that may have been accidently dropped. Felix did some tree climbing and then, as I was about to think about preparing lunch I got the call from Sarah to say that she needs to be picked up.

A drive across the river showed me the surf beach, low tide and a lot of nice sand where I should have been running the dogs. Dogs were at home on this trip. Felix and Matilda both went to sleep. We picked up Sarah from the lake and drove to the Rawdanowicz house. Felix looked out the window and said "big house". I prompted him by saying that Kamil lived here. He followed this with a soft "and Klara too".

This morning Sarah was putting Matlida to sleep for her post morning nap. She seems to have them a couple of hours after waking up. She is a dream to wake up, smiles almost instantly and is happy just to crawl around the bed. The first attempt failed as Matilda crawled happliy out of the bedroom to meet me in the kitchen. For the second attempt I was almost out of the house for work so Felix would need a distraction in "Bob Budowniczy".

We made all the arrangements which included his doll "lala" some nuts, although we stopped on seperate bowls for lala and Felix, they can share.

You me say

Felix is learning language. Mostly English but some Polish words as well. I speak to him in Polish and he understands but usually he picks up the English words first. That is not to say that he picks them up perfectly.

His first sounds I claim to be "gaw" at the 4-5 month mark. His most unforgetable word was "ludulu" and he would "lodl" along for whole sentences. This soon died down as a conversation but became his word for drink/water "ludlu" said in such a fast fashion that both Sarah and my self could not replicate it well. We knew what it meant so we gave him water.

After Ludlu, his next most notable word mix up was "e-ha-ha" said in a cow boy manner to mean exactly that, a horse. I believe this started around Christmas 2005 when we went to Buchan on a day trip from Lake Tyres, sitting in a picnic area, Jane his grandma pointed to some horses in the paddock and "e-ha-ha" was born. Although this is still used in the playfull context, a horse is now a horse and has been for a few months.

In the last few days he has finally got the difference between "you" and "me" sorted out. It was "you want thomas" for I want to play with Thomas the tank engine for months now. In desperate times he would use "you me, you me" can't go too bed hedging your bet both ways.

Tonight he is still saying "ephelant" for elephant and he still uses the outward hand on the mouth as a form of kid sign language.

His most anoying phrase would have to be "look at me mummy" for when he wants to talk to Sarah. I think he picked this up from Sarah when she would say "Felix, look at me when you are talking, please use your words".

I strongly believe in allowing kids to have their little made up words but not confusing them by using them yourself. I have enjoyed each of his mix ups and sure enough, soon enuogh he has grown out of each one of them. I have just had to use plain old english and try and remember that I have had my go as a kid. There are obviously exceptions. I still have made up words: "hunka" for chasing Felix around the house pretending to eat him, "nappa" as a way of saying nappy and ending up also having to chase him, "pukka" as a way of naming the dogs, it just seems to rhyme, "pukka chhina" for zucchini.

Then there is his latest made up word, comming from chocloate easter eggs, a mix from the English "chocolate" and Polish "czekolada" being "checolati" sounding like "gelati" so irresistable for me not to join him in saying it.

As for Matilda, well at 7 months it is hard to call anything talking but she is definitely going to be as talkative as Felix if not more. She is a girl after all and if she is anything like her mother ... Well we have played around with the hand over the mouth, ala indian call, made up talking which she has taken to as much as Felix at a similar age. I belive she has gone one further, grabbing hand in hand and hitting her mouth rhythmicaly at the same time as saying an "ahhhhh" getting the same effect of seperate words sounds that tie into a sentence of sorts "ahh ahhh ahhh"

We have also found that Matlida seems very much more controlled in all her actions, wether moving, crawling, rolling or making sounds. Felix had seemed to have a few more accidents as he would over balance, shout and never really mastered rolling over. Well Matilda seems to be saying a few similar sounds on que, "tata" for dad and "poo" when she has a poo in her nappy. Both are faint but both distinct. Sarah is working hard on a Mama but the smiles she gives her father are all "tata" at the moment.