Sunday 19 June 2011

Music Monday!!!

Woohoo!! It's here again!! Sure to become an instant weekly classic, here is another instalment of Bless My Soul's Music Monday.

So, yesterday started off normal enough. The family ended up at Bunnings yet again, perusing the aisles finding all sorts of things we never knew we needed. The kids (I have three little dears…) ended up with a new kids sized shovel each, I found purple sprouting broccoli seeds, swede seeds, turnip seeds, English spinach seeds AND seed potatoes (so that’s an EPIC win for me), Paddy found all the things he needed for his latest project, AND we bought a 20kg bag of firewood.


Stay with me, this post IS actually about music!!

Off home we go, and I start up a fire in one of those cast iron fire pit things (also, funnily enough, from Bunnings) in our backyard. Pretty soon it gets going, and I start to educate my children (who are all under 6) in the culinary art of marshmallow roasting. They showed some good signs, but still have a lot to learn! What followed was a BBQ, and a salad making session where everyone helped, and sampled, a fantastic rainbow of veggies – and of course cheese, because everything has cheese in it at our place! Afterwards, we had a jump on the trampoline in the dark, counting stars to which my eldest yelled out
“Mum there must be at least a hundred stars up there! Aren’t they beautiful?!”
What an angel he is.
We also found a huntsman on the trampoline, which we caught in a jar, all having a good look at him and his boogily eyes (we called him Harry!) before letting him go in the Veggie Patch. We lit the tops of our roasting sticks until they glowed and waved them around in the sky so they looked like red hot fire flies. And when the kids got tired, we went inside and had a hot bath, a story and a kiss goodnight.

What made that afternoon and evening even more perfect was the soundtrack. One of the first things I did after returning home from Bunnings is get the iPod and dock out and plug it in outside at the powerpoint in the carport. I’ve made up a playlist called “A Whole lot of EVERYTHING” and here is a sample of what is on it:
·         Fingerprints – the Best of Powderfinger
·         Sultans of Swing – The Best of Dire Straits
·         Listen to the Music – The Best of the Doobie Brothers
·         The Very Best of The Eagles
·         Echoes – Pink Floyd
·         Rearviewmirror – Pearl Jam
·         Bat Out of Hell – Meatloaf
·         Greatest Hits – Little River Band
·         All The Best – Paul McCartney
·         Forty Licks – The Rolling Stones
·         Glittering Prize – Simple Minds
·         Achtung Baby and 1980-1990 – U2
·         Greatest Hits I and II – Queen
·         Supernatural – Santana
·         Selections from the 4 disc box set of Led Zeppelin
·         M.U. – Jethro Tull
·         Greatest Hits – Fleetwood Mac
·         The Ultimate Collection – Electric Light Orchestra
·         And then a whole mix of songs from the likes of: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Eric Clapton, Dusty Springfield, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Billy Joel, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, ACDC, The Easybeats, Billy Thorpe, Bob Segar, Bon Jovi, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Eskimo Joe, Mika… this list could seriously go on and on and on… it’s only a sample of the whole thing…
This playlist was put on shuffle. And from about 330pm to around 645pm we were listening to this sort of music. Here is why music brought me joy yesterday.
While waiting for the fire to settle a bit, Good Vibrations came on. My 2 year old hopped up off his chair, walked over to the iPod and put his ear to it – which was considerable loud. After about 5 seconds he decided it was a good song and started dancing around in the best way a 2 year old knows how, by spinning around, jumping and swinging his arms!!
As my eldest is named Jack, he asked me to put Jumping Jack Flash on, which is his official theme song, and we all commenced to dance to that, pointing to Jack at the chorus when it sings “Jumping Jack Flash, it’s a GAS GAS GAS!!!”
My daughter loves Burn Your Name by Powederfinger, and I’m Yours by Jason Mraz, so they both went on and she (who is 3 years old) proceeded to sing both the songs and dance like a ballerina!!
And all three of them would randomly get up and start dancing around when something came on that inspired them!



When the kids see me bopping my head to a song or doing one of my infamous interpretive dance routines (see my post on laughing here), they join in. And they’re smiling while they do it. This is exactly how I developed my love for music as a child. Seeing my dad and my uncles finding the sheer joy in the music they listened to, bonding over amazing albums like Dark Side of the Moon, and Back in Black, encouraging us kids to be ourselves in the way we danced, sang and socialised with each other by always having music on, always associating this sort of music with our BBQ’s, our camping adventures, our parties… my greatest memories of childhood come with the greatest soundtrack imaginable.
I Love music. It brings me great joy. And nothing makes me happier than to see the kids enjoying themselves, as they did yesterday, through music. I can honestly say I know exactly how they feel and, yesterday, I felt I was doing a really great job being their mum.
So thankyou to my family for giving me the gift of music appreciation, I Love you guys with all my heart xxx



Eat well, drink water, live life with Love, laugh a lot, smile at strangers, God Bless
Emily xxx

1 comment:

  1. Love it! We are so getting a trampoline now, because of you. Have been introducing my lot to U2 tonight. Didn't realise it was Music Monday. What a coincidence. Keep bopping, girlie, love it!

    ReplyDelete