Thursday, December 20, 2012

My Son's First Stories



A couple of days ago my son sat next to me on the couch and wrote his first two stories. We have, since he was four (He's six), sat in the local park, on little blue metal benches at one of the workout stations, and told stories, chance a piece. So when he sat down with his index card notebook and a pen, I was not too surprised, and, though I don't wish the life of a writer on anyone, more than a little thrilled.

The writing was basically illegible, as he was trying for words he doesn't really know how to spell yet, but both stories involved "kids being naughty"; and one involved a kid leaving his "fake parents." As I said, I couldn't make much sense of his spelling, which may be just as well, since, when I went to look for these precious index cards just now, I learned they were accidentally thrown away.

The themes of his writing and the loss will almost certainly make him a writer.

Friday, November 23, 2012

We Bought My Son a Drum Kit

As a writer, as someone who craves peace, as someone who can be, frankly, anti-social at times, I have to question our decision to buy Bradley a drum kit for his sixth birthday. Yes, it is an appropriately and mercifully small drum kit (bass drum, tom, snare, hi-hat), but since we lack a finished basement, it now resides in the middle of our living room. That is not an exaggeration. We have a lovely white divan, the ottoman portion of which is now Bradley's drum stool. I have to admit that I was hoping he wouldn't love it. But he is a high-energy, determined, loud music-loving kid. Once we downloaded a couple of songs for him to drum along with ("Yellow Submarine," "Back in Black"--We haven't yet downloaded "Seven Nation Army," as a drummer friend suggested), the game was over for us. Whereas he usually has an attention span of five minutes, Bradley is able to sit at the kit for an hour sometimes, pounding away, very often actually on the beat. The saving grace thus far is that he does not favor the cymbal. We may have to conspire never to let him know there was a band called Led Zeppelin.