Guitar Hero...

So our family is settling down nicely into a routine of work/school, soccer practices, teaching night classes and going to grad school... All without the help of our stay at home Grandmother whom we were all spoiled by from Thanksgiving to the first week of January. I love my Momma and all of the TLC she lavished on us during her stay!! I miss her laughing, our conversations and dinners that are ready when I walk through the door :)

Even with all of the chaos of our lives post-spoiling our oldest guy has still been practicing guitar fiendishly, from the time he wakes up till beyond his allotted bed time, if he is home, he is strumming. It is an awesome thing to have a child who is so devoted to his music (it is even ok to have to lovingly impose boundaries on when it is ok to play and when you HAVE to wash dishes, take out trash, do your homework or let your brother get some sleep)

While he is working on finding his balance between his life and his art, we have been enjoying the fruits of his labour. I'm sure everyone says this about their kid, but he is incredibly talented. We have a wonderful musician in our house! As soon as he began taking lessons last year we knew he had found his "thing" and his continuous and rapid improvement makes me want to document his journey so we had him ask his guitar teacher, a former student of Matt's, to help him record a CD with a few of his best songs on it.

The coolest part, for me, was that when his guitar teacher suggested having someone sing on the CD, Maris asked me if I would do it! So now I get to "jam" with my step son while cooking dinner and hanging out around the house in the evenings. I am having such a good time with this, he is very easy to work with... if only it were this easy to get him to clean his room!!

I am very glad to have music as a way to bond with my oldest boy. It bothers me to think that the baby we are waiting for will get to spend so little time living with his/her uber cool oldest brother. He is a very special guy. You can't have everything though, and while life is sweet, I will savour it... and maybe see if my guitar hero would be willing to learn how to play a few lullabies for his little brother or sister :)