I have wanted to play the drums ever since I was a little girl.  I can’t remember what it was that first attracted me to them, but they’ve always been in my heart.  I even had a kid’s set at one point but my brother and his girlfriend broke them, something I like to tease Dave about to this day.  Actually, it wasn’t really his “girlfriend,” I think he was like 6 or 7 years old at the time, but it was a neighbor girl who had a big crush on him.  That’s all beside the point. I’ve always loved music, all kinds except country and even then there are a few songs I like.  So, I suppose naturally I would be attracted to the drums.  Along with the electric guitar, they are the foundation of rock n’ roll and modern music.  This year, the most fabulous, wonderful, handsome, sexy, funny, and loving husband on the planet outdid himself for my very first Mother’s Day.  My dear Martin got me drum lessons at a local shop, 4 just to try out to see if I liked them enough to continue.  It was the perfect gift!  I have much to live up to for Father’s Day!  

I had my first lesson the Wednesday after Mother’s Day.  My instructor reminds me of a cross between Michael J. Fox and Roddy McDowall with a rock n’ roll edge.  He’s been in a few bands over the years and from what I gather he’s a big fan of classic rock.  He mentioned he followed The Grateful Dead on tour.  I think he’s either around my age or in his early 40s – although he could be older than that but due to his Michael J. Fox quality he looks young.  The first week he had me do snare drum exercises.  The book he had me buy was strictly for the snare drum, so I was a little nervous after the lesson that all I was going to see in the next 4 weeks.  I was wrong. 

The next lesson, pardon my French, kicked ass!!!!  He started me on his electronic drum kit.  We covered 2 or 3 pages of a book by Carmine Appice, the drummer from Vanilla Fudge and various other projects.  I fell in love with the drums all over again.  The instructor played the exercises through for me once and I was to go home and practice on air drums since I didn’t have a set.

I went home, grinning from ear to ear as I entered the house from the garage and encountered Martin on the living room couch.  He could tell I had a very good lesson.  ”Honey,” I said.  ”I think I want to go ahead and buy drums.”  And for anyone who knows me, I wouldn’t say those words lightly because drums are bloody expensive and I’m a tight wad rivaling Ebenezer Scrooge.  So I went on the hunt for a set and it didn’t take long before I found “the one.”  The Pearl F2725F Forum Series 5 piece drum set with cymbals and hardware in wine color.  We looked online and got a good idea as to what we could find them for.  Then Martin found them at a store in Midvale for around what we’d found online, only we wouldn’t have to pay shipping so I was sold.  We went to the store, the salesman did a fabulous job of selling them to me, and we bought them!  

I’m so glad we bought them at the store, because if I had to put the drums together on top of all the hardware, that would have been a pain.  But the drums came assembled, all I had to do was put the stands together and with some help from the DVD that came with the set, it was a piece of cake and I was head banging in no time at all.  I’m still fine tuning on getting the drums to sound how I like, but I’m getting close.  So I was able to practice my second week assignment on real drums and I think it made a world of difference.  The instructor told me he’s had students take a year or so of drums without a set to practice on and they did okay without them. I don’t know how people would do it.  It’s much easier to tell when you screw up because you can hear it.  I’ve now had my third lesson and again the feeling afterwards was “this is so freakin’ awesome!!!!”  I’m moving along in the Carmine Appice book and touching on beats I never thought I’d learn how to play.  The one thing that’s hard is I want to play at 1 million miles an hour already and not have to work up to it.  Granted, I can play some beats fairly fast which isn’t bad for a beginner, but there are some doozies that are going to take some practice.  But I’m up for the challenge!!!  The lessons are perfectly bite sized at 30 minutes a week, so it doesn’t take away much time at all away from Martin, Lark, and Charlie.  I can’t practice every day, but I get a little extra time on the weekends while Lark’s upstairs napping.  Believe it or not with the doors closed upstairs you can barely hear it… or so Martin tells me .

The moral of the story is, it’s never too late to do something you’ve always wanted to do.  I encourage everyone out there with an unfulfilled passion for something to just go ahead and give it a try.  What do you have to lose?  And you’ll never have to wonder “what if.”

Martin and I won the lottery, the baby lottery that is.  With every day I just can’t believe that not only do we have an adorable baby girl, but that she’s a dream to care for (knocking on wood).  She has such a laid back personality and is an extremely happy child, it’s amazing!  She started sleeping through the night a couple of months ago, even though she has on occasion wakened at 1am for a feeding, for the most part she lets us all sleep.  She rarely cries, especially at daycare.  They’ve asked a few times “she’s been so good all day and hasn’t fussed… is she like this at home?”  To which I answer, “mostly” because although she doesn’t cry often, she still does when she’s overly tired.  This does worry me a little because sometimes the “squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  So I hope she’s letting her teachers (I call her daycare providers “teachers” because it makes me feel better… plus that’s what they are, they aren’t just watching her, they do actively engage with her to help her learn and grow) know when she needs something and she’s not suffering in silence.  But she seems very happy in general, so I have to think she’s doing okay. 

Lark is a Super Trooper.  She got a little fever after her first round of shots, and she was fussy because she didn’t feel well, but only a little bit.  Most of the time after she vomits, she just goes back to her day and doesn’t think anything of it unless it happens to go through her nose and then she screams, but who could blame her?  Anything coming up through the nose stings.  During her first week of daycare she caught a cold and today we took her to the doctor because she’s developed a cough that sounds terrible and her congestion is back.  But you wouldn’t know by how she acts or looks that she’s not feeling well.  The only hint is her coughing and sniffles, especially at night while she’s trying to sleep.  The doctor said she caught a secondary illness to the cold and she should sound better in a few days.  It’s probably just the start of a long bout of various diseases since it’s widely known that daycares are germ factories.  But on the bright side, her immune system’s going to be very well developed eventually.

I am in total awe of Lark.  Perhaps it’s a result of her rough first week in the world, but she’s turning out to be a tough little cookie.  She’s also extremely curious about everything.  Recently, she’s started to notice Charlie.  A few days ago while hanging out in her bouncer, Charlie was near her and she was watching him with a look of “what is this fuzzy thing?”.  This afternoon, we were all sitting on the couch watching a movie and I sat Lark up so she could see her Daddy and she spotted Charlie and wouldn’t take her eyes off of him.  She was fascinated watching him eat!  I have no doubt that someday they’ll be best of friends.  And she LOVES to talk.  We call her “Chatty Cathy”.  A couple of nights ago, Lark woke up hungry at 1:05am on the nose.  I fed her and she fell asleep on my lap as she often does after feeding.  I put her back in her bassinet thinking she’d stay asleep.  Nope.  A couple of seconds later, she woke up not upset, not wanting anything but to hear herself talk.  We were tired, but it was still extremely cute.  Both Martin and I took turns trying to get her back to sleep, but the first couple of times, she’d fall asleep on our shoulders and wake up talking when she was put back in the bassinet.  Martin persevered and got her back to sleep for a few more hours. 

So yes indeedy, we won the baby lottery!  Hooray!!!!