Crisply Spoken » Mouths of Babes

Road to Happy

Elisabeth Crisp — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:14:30 +0000

“What’s your happy road, Daddy?” Dancing With the Stars went to commercial, and my ten-year-old daughter hit mute on the remote.

“What?” Bacon’s head was in the latest Albert Brooks’ novel.

“Your happy road,” she said.

“What’s that? I asked.

“The thing that makes you happy.” She closed her decorated composition book. Coco makes notes on the couples’ performances and judges’ evaluations on DWTS. I figured the comment had something to do with movie theme night on the reality show.

“Did you think that up or hear it somewhere?”

“Made it up.” She looked at her dad again. “Mine’s the violin. If I’m sad, I play, and I feel better.”

Bacon said, “You, your sister, and your mom are my happy road. You make me laugh.”

Satisfied, she opened her book again. The commercial break was over.

Extreme Home Makeover: Cherry’s Room Edition

Elisabeth Crisp — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:38:36 +0000

In the midst of pestilence and disease, I made over Cherry’s bedroom. New paint, curtains, light fixture. I pulled up the Berber and painted the concrete slab a glossy chocolate. The thing about painted concrete, besides the fact that it’s cheap and trendy, is it has to cure. Six days. You paint yourself out of the room and close the door. Or not. I couldn’t resist a peek. Or two.

Day four, I’m checking the sweaty surface. Will it ever dry? The seventy percent humidity isn’t helping. The phone rings. I turn my back for a millisecond. Talk. Hang up.

“Jasmine? Jazzy?” Where’s the puppy? ”Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit . . .”

She’s yaps from the middle of the shiny floor. “You can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Schnauzer.” Dance. Dance. Dance. Puppy paws on concrete.

Smack. Smack. Smack. “Shit.” The sound of black flip-flops on wet paint. “Jazzy, come. Jasmine, come.”

“Let’s dance, mom.”

“Damn it. Jazzy come.” She bounces. I stick. Her little feet float above the surface. Weighing less than three pounds is an advantage when walking on wet paint. She doesn’t dent the surface. My BMI leaves size seven footprints. ”Gotcha.” I grab the little rat and deposit my shoes in the trash.

On day four, the floor the gets another coat. Hence I live with the expression, watching paint dry.

Flipped Switch

Elisabeth Crisp — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:09:33 +0000

“Mom, I have butterflies.”

“You’ll do fine. Just do what you practiced.”

Coco was the youngest musician in the warm up room. She watched a teenager in a tulle dress play Bach. The girl sat her viola on a chair and knocked out Ode to Joy on the grand piano. Returning to the strings, she twitched. The instrument hovered and crashed to the floor. The bridge splintered.

Coco lifted her bow and played A Simple Gift. The butterflies melted. Seconds earlier, I wondered, would she balk? Run away? Freeze? Now, she understood, nerves are universal.

When Coco’s name was called, she marched out of the room like she was twenty instead of nine. Later she said, “This was the best day of my life.” She won a position in the orchestra.

The End in Mind

Elisabeth Crisp — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:44:05 +0000

Yesterday, Coco and I argued about the violin. She loves to play. Practice? Not so much. After sparring a few minutes, threatening a few more, I yelled. “Get a notebook and make a list of what you need to do.”

Anyone who knows me, knows my history with the To Do list. I’m ashamed to say, I’ve passed on my angst to a nine-year old. Coco took out a notebook. She scheduled five minutes for bowing, ten minutes for fingering, ten more minutes for working on the rhythm to a Haydn melody. In all she played forty-five minutes.

At the end of the night I said, “I’m proud of the way you practiced.”

“I used one of my habits.” Her school teaches Stephen R. Covey’s The Leader in Me curriculum. “Make a plan. Begin with the end in mind.”

I’m trying to follow her example.

Parenting a Tiger Child

Elisabeth Crisp — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:31:13 +0000

I’m not a Tiger mom. (If you’ve been under a rock in regard to parenting trends, see the article here.) But, since the high school orchestra visited Coco’s school last year, she’s wanted to play the violin. I explained, “You’ll have to learn to read music.” She taught herself notes and fingerings on a dollar store recorder. I said, “Wait until fifth grade. Then you can learn with your friends in the school strings program.”

“I want to play the violin now.”

After she made her big sister watch an entire PBS concert featuring Itzhak Perlman and YoYo Ma, I gave in.

Last June, we agreed to lessons on a trial basis with a rented instrument. We found Miss Winnie, who is Chinese like Coco. She played second violin in the Shanghai symphony. She is a luthier, which means she makes violins as well as plays them. Coco adores her. Once a week, I sit outside a practice room and listen to my nine-year old explore a world that belongs only to her.

This week she gave her first public performance. In the school talent show, she played for 350 of her classmates. Where did she find the courage? I’m not a Tiger mom, but it’s possible I have a Tiger child.

Luck is Here

Elisabeth Crisp — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:31:49 +0000

: Cherry drew the character, Fu, and taped it, upside down, to the inside of our front door. It means, Luck is here. Happy New Year!