Batteries Not Included

Every morning, around 10 AM, the middle school marching band bangs and stomps and squeaks past my house. Tom, at two, is enthralled. He is convinced that his purpose in life is to bang the big bass drum.

And so, we've started music time. We play piano. We pluck, strum, and occasionally bang the guitar. Tom has a blast pounding away on his Fisher-Price plastic drum. He's been known to pick out a tune (albeit more in the style of Coltrane than Mozart)on his rainbow-colored xylophone.

He can play (or at least make a lot of noise on) the recorder, the Irish penny whistle,and our dilapidated harmonica.

So earlier this week, I dug my father's trumpet and my saxophone out of the basement. Tom was very impressed with my improvised version of Happy Birthday, and decided he wanted to give the saxophone a spin. He huffed and puffed, but he just couldn't get a sound to come out.

"Saxophone broken," he sighed. "Need new batteries. No music in it."

Beachlusional

The summer I was six years old, my parents took me to the ocean. I spent the week dipping my toes in the waves and chasing sandpipers. When I came home, I told my best friend that the king of the sea had made me an honorary mermaid princess. I showed her how I swam with my legs crossed at the ankles and pretended to live in castles under the sea.

There’s just something about the ocean — the wide, flat expanse of it — that opens my mind to long-forgotten possibilities.

Keep reading ....

Uncle Donald's

When I found my toddler in a full-on lip lock with a 6-foot fiberglass clown, I realized it might be time to change the family eating habits.

Keep reading at Crunchable.