Well, since school’s started again Katie (age 11) has taken up practicing her trumpet. I came home from work the other night to the happy announcement that Jacob was helping her learn. He’s not even 2 yet, but hey, our children are geniuses. He’s even holding his mouth right. Not sure how it sounded, but I hope the local 5th-grade band sounds better.
The other night after the kids were in bed I was praying in our bedroom and heard a soft voice murmuring through the wall. I put my ear up against the door and sure enough, Jacob was singing softly in his bed. This affinity for music marks him as his father’s son; even as a tiny baby he would stop crying when he heard music, and he often tried to sing along with the congregation at church. (We: “How Great Thou Art!” He: “GAAAAAA!”)
We love music at our house. The oldest three play musical instruments, the oldest four, piano. We all sing. We turn up the Abba and practice swing-dancing for Family Home Evening. We sing as we’re settling down to dinner, to keep the chaos level manageable. Last night the kids were getting a little wild in the car, so I asked them what they wanted to sing. “Horsey horsey!” they howled (it’s an old round; I don’t know what the real name is). I took one part, they took the other, and Emma harmonized. We bellowed and laughed all the way up the hill home, slapping the dashboard in time. Then we switched, and arrived home in the dark, the sweet cold breeze pouring off the mountain, the stars stretched overhead.
Jacob was asleep, and the trumpet was nowhere in sight.
For now.
We call it “The Horse & Buggy Song”.
) My maternal grandmother used to sing it to me as a child, and then it slipped from my consciousness until college, when a dorm-mate was singing it one day and I joined in on the second part. I love that song.
We also have another one we love called “The Open Road”; we’ll have to teach it to you the next time we get together.
We know and love it as “Horsey Horsey” also. My mother would sing it to our family every night. And now… well my children know it very well. I just don’t have the energy to bounce them on my lap like I used to.