Continual Amazement

Yeah, I know. Parents always go on and on about how their kid says stuff that amazes them. Well, here's mine for today.

We were at a party in a house that had a piano. Alex was at the piano playing the highest scale. As he went up he said, "Now the sun is rising." Then when he got to the top note, just before he went down the scale, he said, "Now the sun is going down," and down the scale he played. I asked him if his music teacher did that or if he made it up, and he said he just made it up. I think that's so cool, the way he's taking the music and matching it to a corresponding event of something going up and down. This is a new one for him. Before, he used to call the high notes "young" or "new" and the low notes were "old." Pretty cool the way they think before they're told how things are "supposed" to be.

Was going through old video files and posted this one, this one and this one to YouTube. Oh and this one too. We used to do that in the car all the time, repeating back and forth. I'd change the pitch and the words and he'd keep up with me. These videos are all 30 seconds or less.

He's amazed me from the start.

Another Quick Pipette Update

My poor little future opera singer... we went to his cousin's birthday party on Saturday, 1.5 hours from home... he went outside to play and within a minute was having trouble breathing. Pollen was flying everywhere... so we came in and did a double breathing treatment with that little machine and he showed no improvement. SCARY doesn't begin to describe it. Luckily for all involved, my brother, whose house we were at, just happens to be an ER doctor specializing in pediatrics. He assured me that Alex was ok and didn't need to go to the hospital because he was showing no signs of retraction. He said that in the ER they would put him on a pulse ox, give him a double dose of the meds like we did and would give him prednisone if he didn't improve. He just happened to have some prednisone pills (I didn't ask why, I was just thankful) so he calculated the dosage based on Alex's weight, ground some up and mixed them with applesauce. Meanwhile I put a call into the pediatrician. She called back within 15 minutes (thanks to what I said to the service, that he was having an acute attack and not responding to treatment.) I explained where we were, what happened and what we did. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed or not but she did rx some more prednisone b/c you have to take it for a few days. Poor guy coughed and wheezed all the way home. It was pitch black and pouring and I was trying to figure out where the nearest hospital was for the entire drive. Then, to top it off, when we got home there was one of those giant hairy scary bugs also known as a house centipede on the wall that I had to remove myself.... eewwwwwwwww. WARNING: Do not click on those links unless you are ready to be completely GROSSED OUT.

Husband is not allowed to go away for a week ever again.

Edited to add: He's much better now, no more wheezing !! He's still hoarse from all the coughing but hopefully will be back to singing his favorite arias soon. Oh and just to make this a bit more operatically themed, I let him watch TV while he does the breathing machine, and lately he has been asking to watch what he calls, "Figaro, when the cart comes out," which is "All'Idea di Quell Metallo" (I apologize for the spelling errors there...) and then after that "the part where they chase him," meaning, rewinding to when Count Almaviva tells the musicians to go and they run after him thanking him loudly so he'll give them more money to be quiet and leave, from the Met's Barbiere. I asked him why he likes All'idea - is it the cart or the music? And he said he likes the music at that point where the cart comes out. That's the "numero quindici" part of the duet. I like it too!

Update on the Pipes - UPDATE - Photo added

Those pipes would be Alex's, the future opera singer. He'll be 4 next month. We had a few bad nights of him waking up coughing and wheezing. Went to the doc yesterday where she gave him a breathing treatment with a nebulizer right there in the office, sent us home with the nebulizer machine and sent us off for a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. Lungs are clear - it's seasonal allergies which for some reason are causing him to have asthma, combined with an ear infection and what she thinks is the start of a sinus infection. So he's on antibiotics, breathing treatments, antihistamine, cough suppressant and decongestant. Gotta keep those lungs clear and healthy!

Here he is in the pediatrician's office doing the breathing treatment.

That's My Boy

On the way home from a friend's house yesterday evening, Alex said, "I want to hear that music."
"What music?"
"That music we were listening to on the way here."
Right. Alex wanted to listen to... La Fille du Regiment.
"What part?"
"The loud part."
"Rataplan?" (this is what the soldiers sing when they're all drunk)
"YES!"

The CD was already set to the trio in act 2, so we listened to that, then I put the other disc in. The entire act is one track so I had to fast forward, so we also listened to the patriotic song Marie sings for Tonio and the regiment, and then the love duet.

That's my opera-lovin' boy.

Future Coloratura-er? Oh And I AM Going To See It Again

Scary stuff! Today we were listening to the recent Barbiere on our way to Alex's swimming class and he asked to hear Cessa again. I have to post something on John's wall on Facebook - he's a hit with the 3-4 year old set! Then in the locker room he was making these funny almost laughing sounds - like coloratura. It was awesome. On the way home we listened to the opening of Act 2 and Alex was giggling and laughing at how silly the music teacher sounded and how "the other guy" was getting annoyed. He still goes on about how he wants to be an opera singer, he sings bits of Papageno and Figaro... maybe he's expanding into tenor roles, ha ha. Might as well prepare for it all since there's no way of telling how his voice will change.

Oh well this post just proves that I'm a mother before anything else. Duh. I should also post that John mailed me the CD insert with Nathan's autograph. I got it today. Here's a picture:




















I sent John an email asking when his CD is coming out so I could post the info.

You know, listening to him sing Cessa, I think it's ridiculous that everyone says that JDF is the only one who can do it. That's so not true, and so not fair. I actually brought that up when we were out last week. Wow that was an entire week ago! And one other thing I want to say about that is, we tasted each other's drinks. Did I taste his? I don't remember... I must have. Peer pressure, you know, heh heh.

I have to say again what an awesome time I had in Chicago, not just the opera and after, but the whole time. It was wonderful to be on my own, to do what I wanted, when I wanted, to take an uninterrupted shower! And of course the opera... and of course meeting Nathan for 5 minutes... and of course hanging out with John and friend afterwards... I realized I haven't hung out with guys without my husband there since before we were married. It was refreshing!

Expanding horizons

Warning: Post about Alex follows. My plan was to avoid posting about him here but since I have nothing to report for today and it is opera related, I broke from my plan. So...

I really have to figure out a way to interest Alex in other operas besides Magic Flute. He likes specific arias and instrumentals from a few others, but he still asks to listen to and/or watch MF every single day, several times a day. Today on YouTube I found the Bugs Bunny Barber of Seville episode so we watched that. It'll probably get removed for copyright infringement soon so I'm glad we got to see it. But that's not the same, obviously! Maybe this Saturday's broadcast will be on PBS in a few weeks and I can tape it. Or maybe I'll ask Amy to Tivo and burn it for me.

At least he's watching more than just Papageno. I got him hooked on the performance prep stuff they show during the overture, then he likes Tamino fleeing from the serpent, so that's cool. He also likes the first Queen of the Night aria, or as he puts it, "The song where she sings really high." He gets upset when Monostatos is onscreen, although he's ok with the German version, so it must be the costume and makeup. I got him to watch the scene where Papageno and Pamina sing together after enchanting the slaves with the bells. Then we had to watch it like 5 times in a row. I wish the English version had their other duet. He'll also watch anything with the 3 boys. Makes sense, they're more his size!

So the other opera pieces he likes (and bear with me as I don't know how to spell everything):

The overtures to Barber of Seville and Marriage of Figaro
Champagne aria from Don Giovanni
Largo al Factotum from Barber (the "Hey, Figaro" song)
Non Piu Andrai from Marriage of Figaro (the "castle song" because the english version we have has the word castle in it)
Toreador Song from Carmen
Habanera from Carmen (sometimes we'll sing, "no no no, no no no no...")
Instrumental- Carmen Suite - (one part of that is " The Big Song")
Donna e Mobile from Rigoletto (Beethoven's Wig version too of course!)

And then non-opera, classical music:

Rondo Alla Turca, or as he calls it, The Piano Song - Mozart
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - Mozart
Surprise Symphony- Haydn
Different parts of the Nutcracker -Tchaikovsky
1812 Overture - Tchaikovsky
Peter and the Wolf

There are many others that have numbers only so I don't remember what they're called, and since we're often in the car I can't sit there reading the CD case. But he does have his code names for the pieces, or else he'll sing a bit of it, to let me know what he wants to hear. He used to sing bits of what he wanted to hear before he could talk.


Ok, on to another unrelated (sort of) topic.

I'll probably edit this all out tomorrow. But now it's truly bedtime.

Edited on 3/22: As predicted, I took it out. :)