A woman who almost gets it:

Diana Keough

Jodi

True.

The author is right, boys are a bit weird. I don't get it either.

The trouble is, I had girls first. Girls are great. Girls play Barbies for hours at a time. (To make sure they didn't play exclusively with "girl stuff", I bought them legos. They used them to build houses for their dolls ) My girls wore frilly dresses, even to the park. They kept their clothes clean and now my sister's girls are wearing these gently worn hand-me-downs. I thought the reason my girls were so quiet and well-behaved was because I was such a good mom.

Then I had boys. It has been a humbling experience. All of their toys are weapons. Anything that was not originally manufactured to be a gun, sword or club will be cleverly fashioned into one. :rolleyes: Their legos are made into guns...or vehicles that get crashed or blown up. Their clothes are never clean. This has actually cut down on my laundry. Since whatever they are wearing will be filthy within 10 minutes of getting dressed in the morning, they just wear the same clothes all week. (I do make them change their underwear every day.)

Along with lowering my standards of cleanliness, having boys forced to me rethink my ideas on acceptable behavior. Loud is OK, punching and hitting goes unnoticed unless there is blood, and whether or not to let them play with toy guns is a moot point.

I'm not sure why they are like this but, well, boys are great,too, even tho they are baffling. Now if I could just figure out how to get them to sit still long enough to learn to play the piano.

Nancy,

To get your boys to play the piano, you simply need to choose the right teacher. There is no formula to do this, just ask around at schools, local stores, other teachers, and you will find one.

If you were in Philly I could recommend a dozen.

I am not sure what the best way to do this will be, but perhaps if you fashioned a piano course around "piano as weapon....."

To promote a mixture of crazed mayhem and piano, I have but three words of advice:

Jerry Lee Lewis.

Just tell 'em they can learn to play like ol' Jerry Lee, just as soon as they learn some of this classical stuff. They might even be a rock star. And besides, chicks dig piano players!

Nancy - ditto on all the boys stuff. My son (8) puts holes in the knees of a pair of new pants after about three days. I have resigned myself to buying cheapo sweat pants until he decides to walk erect like the rest of us. Every hike ends with some sort of stick that resembles a grenade launcher. (And they DO look like grenade launchers, it's quite amazing, really) I have "retired" countless squirt guns during our packing. At the dinner table, we either end up talking about what weapon outdoes what other weapon, or we are dissolving into laughter over the funny noises the ketchup bottle makes. *sigh* But he LOVES the piano. He has figured out the first bit of Malaguena by just listening to me play it, and he has figured out the Legomania theme song as well. He sits down a lot and just messes around. Unlike my daughter (11) who whines big time when it's time to practice. Girls are easier in some ways that boys, but in my experience, they can be quite difficult in other ways. The cliques that seem to form earlier than I remember can get pretty nasty - sometimes I wish they would just duke it out and get it over with instead of playing all these mind games with each other... Jodi

My piano teacher takes a break from classical music in the summer and gives 4 week sessions with special themes: jazz, composition, broadway tunes.... maybe she'd be willing to try a "jerry lee lewis" or a "weapons" theme. However, my boys would only attend if the class were over in 10 minutes of less (5 would be better) and if they could go in their favorite holey jeans.