MrsBrown's philosophy of life and stuff

learning music

2012-05-05T13:46:29Z

I had a lovely play on the piano with Rose this evening.

It was late and we were both avoiding her bedtime. We sat together at the piano and I played the songs she's up to in the book we've got out for her. She showed me the pieces she already knows and then I watched the lightbulb go off when she worked out she could read the finger numbers to work out what notes to play. She played the new song a few times, practising her newly discovered technique.

Then she asked me what the 2/4 numbers meant, and I played her new songs again, while counting out loud for each bar.

I'm really enjoying watching her learn to play. She doesn't have a teacher or formal lessons, she just has 4 adults who'll variously play the piano themselves and will pay her a bit of attention when she's interested. She'll also sit at the piano and play for herself - this afternoon she modified one of the pieces she's learned because it "sounds lovely" when she changes the last phrase.

I was keen for my other children to learn music. I spent money and made them practise. It was crap and they learned little until they decided to take it on for themselves.

Now the three children at home are having a lovely time playing around with music and teaching themselves. They're even inspiring me to sit down occasionally.

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Seems kind of lame

2010-02-16T09:41:27Z

Sneetch and I have had quite a few conversations about exhaustion lately and I realised that he's busy complaining of something I remember being aware of for myself for as long as I can remember.

I am always tired unless I have forced myself to do a particular thing. And when I finish the thing, I'll sit down to work out what next and I'm tired again, and I need a large amount of self will to get moving again. Except for the time between getting up and 11ish, then I'm awake and can do anything. On days when I have a really good nap I can get a similar feeling going into the evening. It was really weird going out to one of mr-bassman's night time gigs after one of those naps. Socialising is so much easier when you're awake. [1]

Sneetch complains that he's always exhausted. I'm not saying that he and I are tired in the same way, but I do wonder.

OTOH, he manages to get up and go to school on time every morning (so far, but its only been a fortnight) and he will usually be able to go and hang out with his friends. He does frequently go to bed at 10pm and then complain of being tired in the morning. I've been wondering if he just need to develop som eof the coping mechanisms I've got, or if he should see a doctor, or eat more food.

Anyway, I can't think what to do so I'm off to read a book in bed, like I did last night.

[1] The socialising thing is a bit different in the last few years. Since being the Baroness I've discovered a switch in my head that lets me be vivacious and sociable with strangers regardless of how I'm feeling. Its been quite useful for work functions, I hand out lots more business cards these days, but it only works while I"m standing up.

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My beautiful boy

2009-11-09T21:42:18Z

So that's where he went last night!

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This feminist conscious raising seems to be working

2009-10-16T10:16:10Z

I've been enjoying reading the Geek Feminism Blog some of it is relevant to being an engineer and other bits are just making me look a bit harder at the way my world works.

It's also been raising the consciousness of friends and I've had a couple of discussions of "mansplaining" with the rest of my family. After some arguing to and fro, we decided to call it just 'splaining, because apparently I can be guilty of it too. They were hard discussions, with feminism bagging and a couple of "you're wrong" when I described incidents that had happened to friends. tangent_woman , your trailer reversing story has featured heavily in our discussions.

Today Sneetch told me a story about an incident at school and it restored my faith in my parenting and the child I'm raising.

Sneetch watched someone driving the school go-cart around the basketball court. He admired the drivers skill, the driver took the corners well and drove fast but in control. When the car stopped he noticed that the driver was a girl and was then astonished to hear the teachers and male students giving her advice about her driving. He made a point of going to the driver and complementing her on her skills. He was also pleased to see one of the boys drive too fast, spin and stall.

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Gender

2009-09-05T01:01:03Z

Yesterday, Mordwen posted an extract from qamar's blog about the development of gender stereotypes, particularly in children.

I started to post a response, but it's more about me than I think is reasonable in someone else's blog, so here's a story about me and my experiences of gender.

qamar quoted a study I had spent some time talking with my mother about when I was a teenager. I guess it was part of me working out my own gender identity. It's the study where babies are dressed in "boys" or "girls" clothes and then the behavior of strangers towards the babies was observed to be dependent on the clothes the babies were wearing.

My first gender related story is of a memory I have of being about 4. I remember standing in front of a mirror, I was wearing blue shorts and a striped t-shirt. It was summer and I was looking at myself and wishing, wishing really hard, that I was a boy. I spent most of the time until I hit puberty trying to be mistaken for a boy. It still makes me grin when people mistake me for a man, or call me "mate".

After MrPeacock was born I remember not buying a pink skivvie for him. I noted at the time what I was doing, but decided to go with it. I didn't have that problem for Sneetch - he wore his sister's handmedowns, even the skirts until he was about 3.5. I was always amused to take him to childcare in a skirt and pick him up wearing pants. He stopped wearing skirts when he decided he didn't want to.

When MsNotaGoth was about 4 I gave her a haircut. As I did it I realised that I was making it look worse and worse, so I cut it all off, leaving it about 2cm long all over. After that she spent more time playing with boys because they were more likely to include her in their games. She also played with girls happily and I concluded that it was worth this piece of subterfuge to broaden her play options. Maybe it's time to cut Rose's hair?

I was interested to see how small boys defined gender. Until MsNotaGoth went to school she was quite happy to wear dresses, they were her favourite clothes. Then, after a week at school, she refused to wear dresses anymore. The boys had been teasing her as if she were a boy wearing a dress. She didn't wear a dress again until she was about 14, and still won't wear dresses without a dressing up reason. Then again, I'm pretty similar.

Another time, maybe just before she started school, we went camping for the weekend with a group of extended family. She was found with her pants around her ankles proving to a group of boys that she really was a girl.

In terms of my boys questioning stereotypes, I guess I've made a bit of a fuss about MrPeacock and his attitude to clothes. Would he be called MsPeacock if he were a girl? I love how he dresses and I love it when he's stood in front of the mirror discussing the exact cut of a piece o clothing, but I also feel a little bit uncomfortable and guilty in relation to my pleasure.

I think I've encouraged his interest in clothes - I've always praised him when he chooses clothes that match well, I've gone shopping with him and I loved it when I was choosing his clothes and could put him in interesting colour combinations and make him look great.

My children have always had a different view of gender to your average child. We always delighted in telling them about their father's dress and makeup collection and I didn't own any makeup until my wedding 6 years ago (tomorrow!). I work in a non traditional area and frequently do stuff (I can't think of anything right now) that other women don't do. And then I muck it all up by having 4 children and enjoying cooking and sewing. I guess their Dad mucks it up too by calling himself a feminist and then behaving/speaking aggressively towards women advocating feminism in a way that excludes him.

Anyway, with Rose life is more interesting again. Her father has a much more traditional view of gender than the other kids dad did, and I'm more relaxed about just enjoying what ever person she becomes. I have much less interest in playing games with society than I did when my other children were small. I just want her to have a good time, and not feel that she has to fight with stuff all the time. OTOH, we still seem to have trained her not to cry when she falls over, and to enjoy playing with blocks, trains, cars and computers. I'm also pretty sure I would have estimated her crawling abilities accurately.

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I think I love this approach

2009-08-17T04:07:34Z

I'm reading a lovely blog. I think Celsa put me on to it and I set up a feed for it on dreamwidth.

Today's episode included this lovely approach to negotiating with a 3 year old. It would have worked brilliilantly for both MsNotaGoth when she was 3. It might have worked for Sneetch, but he would have gone along in a knowing way - almost but not quite implying that he knew it was just a way for me to get him to do something, but it was good enough for him to let me get away with.

Here it is:

4. I outwitted a three year old! Yesterday when it was time to rush out the door Graham threw a huge crazyperson tantrum over having to wear clothes and wanting me to get away from himmmmm and leave him alllloooone. I fought back and dug in and tried to just overpower him enough to get his dang shoes on. It sucked and I could see the whole day sucking until I had a total Henry Huggins moment! Wait! Little kids act insane because they are insane.

“Hey Annie!” I said, “I’m Jack and the Magic Tree House is waiting for us outside in the parking lot. I just got a note from Morgan LeFey!”

He stopped screaming and sniffled, just like Ramona would’ve. “What does it s-s-say?”

“It says we have a mission! This little bird is under a spell and she needs your help. To break the spell you must gather these four things:
A set of cards from a printer far away
A receipt that shows you know how to pay
A corner-trimming puncher thing
The feather from a bird with a newly-clipped wing
Be wise, be careful, be nice.”

It worked. Instantly, he sighed and wiped his wet, blotchy nose and said “OK. But we got to find the BOOK.”

We found the invisible book on the way to the car and spent the whole day pretending to be on one giant humor-Graham mission.

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