Getting the kids to practice.......

Any mother worth her salt, would agree with me on this point. The sheer moumental task of getting your kids to practice something they are learning. It is a period that can stretch your 'whatever left over patience' to the limits.

This is a time when mothers keel over to the side like a sinking ship, or hang by the thinnest thread over the cliff, or are ready to tip over the boundaries of reason into the other world of madness.

My daughters are learning to play the keyboard. The enthusiasm that gripped all three of us, a feverish anticipatory feeling when it all began is still there. The girls and I would be ready for the music teacher with the keyboard placed at the center on the carpet. We would adjust the angle and position of the chairs every now and then, shift them this way or that ever so often wondering whether such a tilt would offer the best position for learning. Nothing has changed this routine even now!

We would eagerly wait for the sound of the teacher's bike or car and then rush to take our positions respectively. It was a comic sight. I would quickly take my seat on the sofa to watch, the elder one beside me. The younger girl is seated on the chair with the keyboard in front and an empty chair beside for the teacher.

It was a picture of studious music lovers with a musically motivated mother hovering by. Pleasantries exchanged, we would all sit down for the half-an-hour class per child with eagerness.

Time passses quickly, the elder one follows the younger one to the chair to learn. The teacher bids adieu and is quickly gone to the next appointment and class.

This is where the cliff hanging starts! The first day after music class is when I feel the pins and needles sensation most acutely. The "mother centric special" centers of the brain start their warning signals early on. "You must initiate the practice, you must let them begin it" scream the neurons.

So it starts, the prodding from my side to begin the practice and the resistance of the paediatric brains to this nagging. After a short time of this haggling, one of the paediatric species takes the chair. A huge sigh of relief and victory escapes from me.

The relief does not last long. I sit on the sofa now with the news paper open, interjecting now and then with "1,2,3,4" or "1 and, 2 and, 3, 4" or "1,2,3" helping with the counts. The girl gets up from the chair and says " mommy, do you know what Jo..... said to me today?" or "you know we were practicing this dance and let me show the moves" (from the elder girl)..

"Later, later! Now get back to practice" comes my irritated reply.. The practice resumes until a voice pipes up saying " mommy, I need to drink water" or "oh, I forgot something, I need to call my friend". The excuses are many and varied. They never get exhausted, something akin to a celestial goldmine.. ...

The same sequences of events follow everyday until the day arrives for the next music lesson. We make the usual fuss and take our usual positions on the chairs.

Now comes the verdict from the teacher! "Very good! you have practiced well and learnt your lessons well, O.k let me teach you new lessons and pieces!"

I become a huge inflated balloon, floating carelessly... The words of the teacher are like music, helium whatever, but I am reaching heights....

Alas! Time is short... All too soon the lessons end, the euphoria ceases, helium has leaked and I am on terra firma.....

There they are! The patience testing days, a deflated mother, merry kids entering the practice sessions merrily, merrily and the cycle of music practice emerges from the horizon!