Monopoly and Guitars

Ahhhhh, I woke up feeling quite refreshed today after my recharge last night. I made the most of my time today catching up on some things this morning and afternoon before I picked Rugrat up from spending the day with Gram and Pops (his step grandparents…who are awesome, by the way). He and his little brother and sister spent all afternoon there and had a blast.

Mommy, er, Santa got this starter guitar from Toys r Us for Rugrat for Christmas last year

As the Rugrat is almost as crazy about my boyfriend Luke as I am and aspires to be a country musician just like him, I told him last year he had to learn to play the guitar if he wanted to make it in that industry. Knowing it would require hard work and lots of practice he said no at first. He soon decided though that he could teach himself by watching YouTube videos. I made him a deal. If I talked Santa into bringing him a guitar for Christmas last year, he had six months to teach himself at least the basics.

Needless to say, he didn’t watch the first video. So, at the beginning of last month I did a shout out to Facebook land asking for recommendations that would not break the bank. A client/friend messaged me and offered a great rate for 30-45 minutes a week. Knowing how my kiddo likes to try new things and then gets bored, I was not interested in paying a ton of money until I knew he would take to it and keep with it, so I set up his first lesson with Chad a month ago.

Tonight was his second guitar lesson, but we pretty much had to start from scratch. The kiddo Mommy had dropped and cracked the neck joint of the guitar at his last lesson and between work and vacation travels, his dad was not able to repair it for a couple of weeks. Last week we were scheduled to get back on track, but Chad was hungover sick. Rugrat is not the best at focusing on one thing for 30 minutes, but Chad is very patient with him. I just sat back and let Chad establish some authority with him and for the most part kept my mouth shut and downloaded an app on my phone to use to tune the kiddo’s guitar. Even though my boy had a hard time getting through the lesson, he showed some signs of actual excitement about learning an instrument. Growing up a part of a very musical family myself, teaching my offspring to appreciate all aspects of music and learning at least one instrument has always been important to me.

We finally got home and had dinner, and Rugrat decided instead of even turning on the TV, he wanted to sit down with me and play Monopoly. I hate Monopoly. His short attention span did not appear from nowhere. He gets that honestly. Finally, after 45 minutes he agreed to put it on hold until tomorrow. I had some work to do on the computer and told him he could watch YouTube videos while I worked and then we would go lie down and watch a bedtime show and lights out at 10. He agreed.

This kid is pretty cut-throat when it comes to this game and LOVES to wheel and deal!

I got pretty focused on my work and had his video tuned out. After about 30 minutes, I noticed the sound had stopped, but I assumed the video had ended, and he was searching for another one. Then I heard the heavy breathing. The kiddo was sound asleep on my couch by 9:15! WHAT??? This boy is a night owl like his momma. He is rarely asleep that early on a school night, much less summer night.

YAY! I can actually get a blog post written tonight! I skipped out last night and fully enjoyed my “me” time and did not want to skip a second day. So, lucky reader, you can thank Rugrat for being blessed with a little bedtime humor tonight and having this semi-decent reading to put you to sleep tonight.

Well, I think I heard a car door. The Sleep Police must be here, and I want to head them off at the pass. We would not want them to wake up the kid they are trying to make sure went to bed on time! We have another busy day tomorrow, so this mommy is hitting the sack early tonight too.