still frontloadin'* after all these years

*frontloading (frunt-lo-ding) v. 1. talking to the kids about my values in the hope that they will absorb the values for themselves. 2. fighting the more unpleasant aspects of popular/dominant culture. AmazonMidwife's Lexicon

Sorry about the phonetic errors; I don't have diacritical marks on my keyboard. There's probably some way to get them, but that would mean disturbing the savant while he's at work. Actually, I call him at work all the time without worrying about disturbing him. But, asking him to talk me through computer stuff over the phone---that would be disturbing him, since we both get frustrated when we try to do that.

So about the frontloading. You may know that I have been uneasy about the fact that the girl refuses to sing, esp. since I think singing is something that humans need to do; quality of said singing (or dancing, for that matter) is unimportant, but the act of singing is (IMLTHO). However, I have been trying to let her come to this realization organically, since she has a good deal of her mama's contrary streak.

However, I did take advantage of two serendipidous events to give her a nudge: first, the friends who introduced the savant and me have started coming back to our church. along with their daughter, who is 6 wks older than the girl. Did I mention that said female friend is a music educator? And that her daughter likes to sing and is involved in theatre? Secondly, the church started a children's choir. The nudge involved reminding her that part of her education needed to involve becoming musically literate, and she could choose to take piano lessons, which would involve time practicing. Or, she could join the children's choir, which met for a 30 minute weekly practice, and that her friend would be there as well. She inherited my pragmatism as well, and agreed to try the choir, which was all I could expect.

Of course, she likes it. I knew she would. She's even singing around the house. This has been assisted by the fact that the friend has a Barbie mp3 player, and has the soundtrack to Shrek on it. And, since the boy is in the choir as well, and involves himself in the girls' friendship (and the accompanying technology), so he's been running around the house singing Smashmouth's "All Star." The girls, however, were much more interested in the rendition of Cohen's "Hallelujah." I told them that k.d. lang did a much better version, and put this on for them:

Frontloading. Get it now?

The boy was so entranced by the video that I was able to play him James Taylor's "You Can Close Your Eyes" and "Sweet Baby James", both tunes that I sing to him as lullabies, as well as Paul Simon's " Loves Me Like A Rock". Frontloading. Now let's see how well it will take. Just because I know the words to most of Tom T. Hall's songs as well as the chorus to Little Jimmy Dickens' May The Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose and all those other country music songs my mom listened to doesn't mean that I choose to listen to them. But I do have a soft spot for Johnny Cash...do you think I'll be able to frontload enough to prevent the ubiquitous parent-teenager music clash that is looming?