Noisy future?

David's obsessed. Last Thursday he heard the drums from the marching band at the end of our street and began to shout frantically, "It's here! Tulip Festival is here! Come on! Come on! You'll miss it." Around the house he went earnestly gathering all family members to witness the junior high band practicing for the upcoming parades. For over a week now, each morning at 11:30 we hear the drums begin to beat and David's response is always the same. He tolerates no delay from family members, even ones visiting from out of town. Though the band may be over a block away, we all have to line up and wait expectantly. More often than not we have to parade ourselves to the end of the street so we can be up close and personal as the band marches by.

A day or two later David approached me with a large popcorn tin in hand and his shirt pulled out. He asked me to fasten his shirt between the lid and the tin so he could carry his drum around.
After one or two stretched shirts I realized I could achieve the same support by attaching a soft belt as a strap. A side benefit was that it became much easier to switch who got to be the drummer. Carie no longer had to figure out how to attach the drum to her dress as she did when the kids held their own parade. They were so innovative. Maggie asked for something she could use for a baton and we found a support from their play kitchen set for her to use. For flags we tied plastic grocery bags (yes we still sometimes forget to take our reuseable cloth bags to the store) to old broom sticks. They happily marched around our house. I'm not sure what the neighbors thought.



Marching band drums may have stirred David, but watching a drummerworld.com video of a 14 year old Brazilian drummer inspired his soul. I believe he now has his heart set on being a drummer. The day after seeing the video I spotted him beating away on a self-designed kit, complete with a cymbal held by Daddy. The video doesn't capture his best drumming, but it is fun nonetheless.


Carie found it all rather fascinating and I later found her on the living room floor drumming away, too.



Two drummers! Can one households stand it?