“Dear Heavenly Music Goddesses, 
Please guide Jerimiah and me on this next journey of our lives. Lead us to ears that are not as tender as my bowels. Grant us serenity at 8:00 am on Saturday mornings. Provide for us a music instructor that is not super into home practice. In Dizzy Gillespie’s name we pray. Amen.” This is the way I begin my day now, with this simple prayer. If your child is also beginning music lessons for the first time, feel free to use this prayer. So far, it has not worked. But I believe that prayer is something you have to work at, like your marriage or the extensive, yet doable, plot to kill your neighbor’s snarky cat. It takes time, friends.

I joke about this trumpet thing with Jackson, but I am secretly pumped that he is doing it. In fact, I was so pumped and optimistic that he would “get” it and love it, that I decided to BUY him his own trumpet! Then I found out that trumpets cost thousands of dollars, so we are renting one instead. BUT, it is new. And if he does love it, we can buy. Sort of a rent-to-own deal. Which I’m usually not big on, but in this case, it’s cool. I have threatened him within an inch of his life to keep this trumpet nice in the event that we do return it. But I also bought insurance on the expensive bitch, cause this ain’t my first rodeo.

He originally wanted tp play the tuba.

The tuba.

And I was all, Hmmm, let’s think about this. Tubas are large.

And he was all, Sure, but they sound awwwesome. (I’m envisioning Kevin from “The Office” saying this right now, but it was in fact Jackson.)

And I was all, Sure, but they are large.

And he was all, But…

And I was all, THE ANSWER IS NO! Love you.

This is to say the trumpet was a compromise.

His method book came first and he wasn’t super impressed. Meanwhile, I was singing “Banana Boat” to him to get him pumped for his year with the trumpet, and that’s when he asked me to stop singing and said, I don’t care for jazz. And right then the floor opened up and the ghost of Fats Domino rose from the below and slapped him hard in the face with one of his big rings on and then disappeared. Jackson looked at me in shock and I said,

“I’m gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
I’m gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
With my Kansas City baby and boy she’s really fine…”

M.