My 12 year old son is in choir. He had a "concert" this evening for the last time in 6th grade. He has a wonderful voice, but has decided that he doesn't like to sing around the family. He only sings at choir practice and for performances. I'm not sure what brought about the change, but he has been that way for a couple of years now.

He was 5 years old when we realized he had a really good musical ear. He has great pitch and actually hits the notes he is trying to hit unlike his father who couldn't sing his way out of a paper sack. Cameron used to sing country songs for us and dance while he was singing them. He was quite the entertainer. At 6 years old he had memorized a dozen Toby Keith Songs and could sing them at the drop of a hat. He would try to get everybody to gather around in the family room and then he would bring out his cd player or the karaoke machine and blast out "Wanna Talk about Me", or "Beer for my Horses". He knew other music as well and developed a taste for listening to classical music. He told me that he wanted to play sax or guitar. As of now he has a guitar but hasn't learned it. He lost interest in learning to play music but has kept his interest in learning songs from his music teacher.

So tonight was his teacher's final concert. After 42 years of teaching music the guy is retiring. He deserves a break and although he will be sorely missed, we are happy for him. So the choir sang their songs one of them being "Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. They did a commendable job. It's very relaxing for me to hear a group of people sing in tune. Of course it's also nice if you can actually hear the kids singing.

I have raised 3 boys and understand that when children are young they can be cranky, messy, noisy, whiney, smelly, gassy, and every other "y" you can name. BUT that doesn't mean that everybody else should have to share those things with my child. When my kids got to being noisy or irritating they would be outside with me until they could calm down and not disturb the other people that came to watch their children perform. I call that common courtesy. Just because I wanted kids, doesn't mean that the person sitting next to me wanted my kids too.

Tonight there were a lot of people that decided everybody should get to enjoy their child's noisy nature. This was of course at the expense of missing a good portion of the program. I couldn't believe that people are that unconcerned with anyone else but themselves that they couldn't take the few minutes it would have taken to walk their child outside to calm them down. I guess things are different.

So my kid finished his program and he was happy and excited that he got to do it. I look forward to the years ahead as he has already told me he wants to continue with choir and has even considered drama. I didn't take drama in school because I thought I was too cool. I have held that regret for years. I tell my kids not to worry about what other people MIGHT think. They should try it if they think it might be interesting. So here's hoping for many more years of choir and maybe band and hopefully high school drama class!!

BTW...I have not had the time to get my pictures from 6th grade camp downloaded yet. I will do that this weekend and give you guys some pretty pics of some great landscape (hopefully).