Paco, Tchaikovsky and Pachelbel

My then-2-year-old P asked me to draw him a violin.

One of the things I worry about in raising my son is not having a male role model for him growing up. Sure, he sees his dad and my brother and MY dad every so often but he spends most of his time with me -- and his female nanny. I’m afraid that my feminine ways will rub off on him and that he might grow up well… not macho enough. I’ve never been a fan of the typical ‘macho’ guy. You know, the buffed non-green incredible hulk, who speaks in a super macho baritone, eats raw eggs for breakfast and reeks of sweat and testosterone. Eew. No, not that type of macho. No. Oh hell no. I just want P to grow up a gentleman. A handsome chivalrous man who would give his seat to the elderly, open the car door for a lady and would answer pleasantly and politely when spoken to…and can in 3 languages -- HAH. Stays fit by playing sports. He seems interested in soccer and golf… promising. Plays the piano…although he likes the violin (that'll do) and loves his mommy so much he won’t get married until he’s 40! Yay!

I know I’m getting way ahead of myself but I worry I won’t be able to raise the perfect P. My cause for concern is that I’m too much of a girlie girl that he’ll catch my girlie girl ways. He talks like me already! And I really sound like a girl! Huhu. Well, I can either change the way I talk or do hand signals from now on. Pfft. Not gonna happen. Sigh. Here’s another example. I saw the Broadway musical Wicked earlier this year and I went crazy…fan girl crazy. I played the songs in the car all the time to the point that Paco and his yaya can sing along to it. Well, the mania eventually died and I discovered Spotify (weee!) so began the playing of non-Wicked music in the car.  This made P unhappy. He didn’t like it. He wanted Wicked. Uh-oh.

I play the piano and I play classical music -- Sonatina, Minuet in G Major, La Traviata -- yes, that kind. *you can stop snoring now* So naturally, I listened to a lot of classical music when I was pregnant and played a lot of baby Bach and baby Mozart when P was younger. Barely able to walk, I noticed that Paco had a liking for Tchaikovsky. He would literally stop playing when songs from the nutcracker were played. He loved Concertino on BabyTV! He was so drawn to it I thought I was raising the next musical genius. One time, at the mall, a string quartet was playing and Paco went all catatonic. Wide-eyed and almost drooling in awe. You’d think he was staring at a giant gummy worm. Nuts! He just wouldn’t leave. After my futile attempts to coax him away, I left him there to watch the quartet (with his nanny of course) all googly-eyed as I did my errands hoping that when I’m done, he would have had his fill of the music and we could leave the mall and continue with our lives. I was wrong. He was mesmerised beyond measure and still wouldn’t leave. The gentlemen probably thought it was cute that this little boy seemed so enthralled by their playing that they asked for his favorite song. I told them. Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major (a wedding march… go figure. And yes, he outgrew Tchaikovsky).  The quartet took a break after that (I don’t know if they sensed my desire to leave) and I was able to drag P away.  

Culture is good but I don’t want to go overboard and have a broadway fanatic, violin-clinging, Pachelbel-playing toddler who would visit malls to listen to string quartets instead of play in the grass and eat ice cream. I know I AM to blame. Yes, I know. *face palm*

So… MOVING ON…. What does mommy do to remedy this? I went online to look for a school where he can take some martial arts lessons. He DID SAY he wanted to learn karate when he saw it on TV once so I’m holding him to this. Of course, he’ll have violin lessons every weekend too because I love him and I want to feed his love for music. Who knows, we might do a mommy-and-son duet of Canon in D Major -- P on his violin and mommy on the piano. Oh that would be super awesome!

Oh and I’ll let you in on a little secret, I’ve been scouring the net to score tickets to the nutcracker to reunite him with his old love… Tchaikovsky. Ooh I can almost see it, P all googly-eyed, gaping mouth, not blinking … at the ballet listening to Tchaikovsky – mesmerized and drifting to a different world. No, not Pachelbel. No one's marching to a wedding song anytime soon.