Friday's Five: Story Songs

Just in case you're missing New Music Mondays this summer, here's another musical Friday's Five to tide you over.

I really like "story-telling songs" -- the ones that might be a bit long, but reward you with the double-entertainment factor of an interesting tale and some good music. Whether funny or moving or powerful or all of the above, they're fun for singing along with in the car, plus you can amaze your friends and family by learning all the words and performing a capella. Okay, maybe not so much on that last part, but it's worth a try.

Often there's a turning point in the story, when you realize things aren't going to turn out quite like you thought or maybe when things finally start to work out just as you hoped they would. It's not the refrain, but it's the line that sticks, gives goosebumps, rings in your ears.

Here are five of my favorites -- what are yours? (Links take you to the lyrics)

1. "Johnny’s Camaro" by David Wilcox: The tale of Johnny's girlfriend, who discovers on a trip to Africa that she doesn't need a dude in a Camaro to be able to soar... "Man, she didn't know she could jump that high. Ah, but she does now."
   
   
2. "The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega: An honest soldier boldly questions his queen about the wars he fights on her behalf, but she isn't ready to face the truth... "But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break / And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached."
   
   


3. "Shopping Cart of Love: The Play" by Christine Lavin: Her fiance ditches her for her roommate (and takes her car and her favorite sweater), but a disastrous trip through the grocery store's express lane turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to her... "So he grabbed me / And he dragged me / As as I was sobbing toward the door / When a soft voice whispered / 'I've got seven items, I'll take three of yours.'"
   
   
4. "A Christmas Song" by Dave Matthews: It's an old, familiar story, but this song brings new life to the important tale of a young couple, their new son and the love that he would share with the world... "I came to shed a little light on this darkening scene. Instead I fear I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around."
   
   
   
5. "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel: Okay, so this one is a little cheesy. But it holds such fun memories of my summer spent in Laurinburg. Follow along as Brenda and Eddie find out what happens when you peak too early... "They got an apartment with deep pile carpet / And a couple of paintings from Sears / A big waterbed that they bought with the bread / They had saved for a couple of years / They started to fight when the money got tight / And they just didn't count on the tears."
   

Why Yes, Thank You, My Hair IS Adorable

"J-Fest 2009: Turning Four" update coming soon, but in the meantime I'll give you a little story about the Pip:

Although we waited until his birth to see if Junius would be a boy or a girl, we decided to find out in advance with Pippi. When the ultrasound tech said, "It's a girl," we were stunned into silence. Somehow, we'd both convinced ourselves it was another boy -- and we were excited about having a matched pair. We didn't tell anyone for at least a week, it was that much of a shock.

I was immediately terrified by visions of a moody, dramatic, teen-aged daughter whining and complaining and hating me for no good reason. I knew from experience that even daughters who really love their moms are sometimes unreasonably snotty to their mothers without cause (Mom -- I am so sorry!), and I just didn't want to deal with that.

Thankfully, my mama-friends with daughters talked me down off the ledge, so that by the time Pippi arrived I was delighted to have a baby girl. She's already a moody drama queen at age 16 months, so I'm sure the teen years will bring plenty of challenges (ahem, I mean growth opportunities?) -- but she's silly and sweet and sassy and snuggly in ways that are different from her brother, which is fun to watch.

She also brings with her all the fun, girly stuff. I mean, let's be honest -- girl clothes are soooo much cuter than boy clothes.

And then, this past week, our first experiment with pigtails...
Sadly I don't have a picture of her admiring her hair-do in the mirror, but I think the laughing photo gives you an idea of just how impressed she is with herself. Looks like we'll be waiting a little longer for that first haircut this time around.

The Days Are Long, But the Years Go By So Quickly

His birthday should have been 10 days ago. He comes from a long line of late bloomers, so we shouldn't have been surprised when he didn't arrive on time. But I expected him every day anyway, pacing up and down my street, bulging in the outrageous heat, sure I would give birth any moment (as was my sweet neighbor, watching me go back and forth).

Finally, in the wee hours of July 8, after two days of painful back labor, my water broke. I heard the pop, as I lay propped up sleepless in my bed.

Twelve hours later with a mediocre epidural and all the pitocin they could give me, he still wasn't moving. Still no progress, no baby.

C-section, whirlwind, wedged in, it's a boy, whisked away. And then I blacked out. When I came to, not sure if maybe I'd died in the process, I was a mother. Just like that.

He was beautiful, round and tiny, with soft brown hair and huge hands. He was, as my husband first described him while I was coming out of the fog, "a champion baby." I knew I would always love him (he looked so much like his dad, how could I not?), but it took a little time for me to fall in love with him. Took some time to decide what it meant to be a mom.

I was overwhelmed, over-tired, unprepared for recovery from surgery. He only slept when we held him, so we held him day and night. He nursed around the clock for hours on end and refused to take a bottle. He cried and I cried with him. We accepted lots of help from friends and family.

Then one day, he smiled at me. And before I knew it, I was his Mommy and he was my love. And then he crawled and became a redhead and walked and turned blond and jumped and ran and used a fork and talked in sentences and pedaled his tricycle and slept through the night in his own big bed and made friends and used the potty and jumped into the big pool and ohmystars he's four.

Just like that.

Happy birthday, Junius! I love being your Mommy and I love watching you be you.

Super Junius Strikes Back

Yesterday afternoon at our neighborhood pool (which was poop-free, thankyouverymuch), Junius was having a grand time with his newest skill -- jumping into the shallow end while I stand in the pool with Pippi and cheer. Although it might not sound like a lot, it's a big deal for a little boy who was not the least bit interested in the big pool at the beginning of the summer.

While I was trying to keep Pip entertained (she was much less interested in being in the big pool than her brother was), another slightly-older kid in the pool must have made some sort of age-related comment to Junius. I missed what she said, but when I tuned in, this is what I heard...

"I'm not a baby!" he shouted, flashing his sternest, most angry-eyes face. "I went to Superhero camp last week! Rrrrrrarrr!"

Then he splashed the water and shot her another tough-guy look, while he hopped up and down because he's only just tall enough to touch in the big pool.

"That's right, you tell 'em," I said to Junius (I wasn't being mean, I was just trying to encourage him -- he's not usually very assertive, so we've been working on his ability to stand up for himself). "You say, 'I am Super Junius and I am four!'"

"No, Mommy," he said, as if explaining to a baby. "I'm not four yet."

Oh, right. Two more days of being three. My boy is all imagination, but he's still a stickler for accuracy.

Photo taken last summer when he still required swimmies and catching and lots and lots of coaxing.

Here Comes the I-love-you Man

Junius spent the past week at Superhero Camp through a great arts school near downtown. He had a blast, learning to fly, making a superhero belt and doing whatever else superheroes do. In addition to talking about Superman and the rest, they also talked about real life superheroes, like firefighters and garbage collectors and other people who make our lives better.

Every day he came home with a different stamp on the back of his hands -- his reward, he told me, for doing such a good job. On the last day, when I was admiring his hands, I noticed that the stamps that day were the ASL sign for "I love you" -- an image of a hand with the thumb, forefinger and pinky up, while the other two fingers are folded down.

That's so sweet, I thought to myself, that they're teaching the kids to be loving and kind superheroes.

When I asked Junius what the pictures were on his stamp, he lit up and announced, "It's a web-spinner hand, Mom! It's awesome!" Then he demonstrated by holding his hand out and pretending to shoot webs out of his wrist.

Sometimes, I am so not cool.

Friday's Five: Good Reads

As a kid, I spent summers at the library with a big cardboard box. Fill the box, read the books, return the books, repeat. I don't know for sure how often we went, but in my memory it was a weekly trip. I loved the summer reader programs because I could fill the chart after chart with stickers representing all the books I'd read.

As a teen-ager, college student and then high school English teacher, summer reading went nearly the same way. Different books, same process (only without the sticker charts). I loved the freedom to devour whatever caught my attention, from classics to trash.

Now that most of my reading involves Curious George and Sandra Boynton's hippos, I like to think back on some of my favorite selections and imagine the things I'll read when I manage to carve out the time. Here's the first five on my recommended reading list (in no particular order) -- more to come on future Fridays:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Read for a comparative literature class in college. Nearly fell off the bed when I got to the end of the book, it was just that good.
   
   
2. Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons: Any book that starts this way is bound to catch your attention: "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." Taught this as a first-year teacher and still wonder how I got away with it.
   
   
3. Old Dogs and Children by Robert Inman: Really wanted to name my future daughter "Bright" after reading this sweet and lovely book. Plus Inman was a newscaster in Charlotte, where I was living when I found his novels.
   
   
4. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: My first high school glimpse into the idea of feminism, this story was both terrifying and empowering. The first of many Atwood novels and short stories for me.
   
   
5. The Cider House Rules by John Irving: Another high school discovery and the first of several Irving reads to make me think about things outside the safety of my own world.
   

Is that poo in your pants or are you just excited?

Some of you have already seen what I'm posting here, either because you go to the same pool with me or because you saw my status on Facebook. But two days later, it still cracks me up, so I've decided to share it here.

It's the opening paragraph from an email sent to pool members by the pool managers on Monday. Not sure if it was intended to be hilarious or not, but I laughed until I snorted the first time I read it. Also, I think it's relevant to the story to know that the pool managers are a married couple with school-age children and she is a former NASA engineer and science teacher, i.e. they're "grown-ups" and not teen-agers.

Seems that we had a "code brown" at the neighborhood pool on Monday -- the second since the pool opened a month ago. So our pool managers are understandably frustrated because of whatever de-tox/sanitation process they have to go through to be able to re-open the pool.

And now, without further ado, the excerpt (emphasis, mine):

"We had to close the pool this afternoon because of another fecal incident. Our apologies to anyone who showed up during pool hours to yet another locked gate. These things do happen, but you could help us by reminding the younger kids to use the bathroom before they come to the pool and during the rest periods. It is a wonder of childhood that you can be having so much fun that you don't realize you are about to crap in your pants."

Did I mention how much I love my neighborhood?

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net.