The Little Drummer Boy

I played piano as a child.   I can't remember how many years I took piano, but I'm fairly sure it felt like my entire childhood to me at some points.    I wasn't particularly good at playing the piano and I absolutely refused to read music.   I still look at a sheet of music and think to myself how it still looks like scribble-de-scrabble stuff.   I can tell if a song is complicated or simple, and if I take the time to slowly and painfully read through each note, I might make out a bar or two eventually.    It's rather like someone who has a conversation with someone in sign language by spelling out each word and taking the time to look up each letter sign in-between each letter.

I had a few songs I was good at playing though.  And I like to make up little tunes from time to time. One of the songs I liked playing during the holidays was, "The Little Drummer Boy."   It was just a few notes at a time and it was easy and slow to play.    There was use of the foot pedal (which was always fun) and it was an eerily sad and moving piece.  

My father would ask me to play it on nights around or on Christmas.  He and my mother would sit in the living room where the piano was situated and I'd play and they'd listen.   The song was so slow that I could play the tune while reading the words on the sheet music below it.   I remember the sheet music was on a yellow or orange book of a non-standard shape, being shorter and squatter than most of my other music.

I always thought the song was so say and yet so poignant at the same time.   I always tried to do my best when I played The Little Drummer Boy, thinking of that little boy who played his drum so very long ago.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband tells stories about Super Helicopter man at night when he puts my children to bed.   My son wanted me to tell one the other night (my husband makes them up on the fly) and I told him I was planning on telling a different kind of story.   "That's okay, I'll tell one," he says and immediately launches into a story.   As it turns out, Super Helicopter Man has a friend named Jumper Girl.    Jumper girl helped to "save the day" after coming, "to the rescue."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter said to me yesterday, "I spy with my little eye...I smell like poopie."    Can you guess which room of the house she and I quickly visited next?