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Whistling While You Work ...
My car, my house - my very world - sounds as though it has been invaded by canaries. It is maddening.
And I just don't have the heart to send that canary back down in the mines ... since it is a human canary, appearing in the form of Flipper - The Amazing Whistling 5-Year-Old.
It sticks in my craw - not to mention my ears - that she can whistle, and does so at every single opportunity that her mouth is not otherwise engaged in TALKING and EATING.
Why does it irk me that Flipper spends almost every waking moment warbling like a bird? Well, because her ascension to the ranks of a real, honest-to-gosh whistler in my family leaves ME as the ONLY non-whistler in the family!!!
I can't whistle. I tried for years. It eludes me. Yelling at my dogs works just fine. And, how kind of Flipper, she likes to point out my inadequacy as a whistler every chance she gets.
"Are you sad that you can't whistle like me, Mommy? Maybe you'll be able to when you're OLDER. Me, Aunt Kathryn, Daddy, Grampy and Smokey can all whistle. Did you know you're the only one in our WHOLE FAMILY that can't? Did you know that?"
And so on. And on, and on and on. It is excruciating. Almost as excruciating as the past five months, as I experienced her "learning curve" of whistling.
This in an area where I admire her and also look at her as an utter stranger. She has an incredible ability to really, really work at something over and over again until she gets it. An ability I lack, by the way. I want to be the instant expert at something, or else I want to quit.
Lame, I know. Really lame. But, them's the breaks.
But Flipper will set her mind on something, and then go for it. I admire this quality immensely, even though I don't share it (unfortunately). And so all summer long, she practiced. And practiced. Pursed lips, fat cheeks, endless puffs of air. Tiny squeaks, little trills. She's driving me crazy!! And now five months later, she has progressed beyond tiny squeaks to small bars of music, tuneless bars, mind you, but music just the same.
And so, as maddening as it is, it is music to my ears.
Leigh appears Mondays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh at her blog Flipper and Me.
Leigh Sparacino
Leigh is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Monday.
Leigh grew up in Durham, attended college in North Carolina, left the area for an island off the coast of Georgia, the high mountains of Colorado, and her favorite mountains in western North Carolina, before returning to the Triangle eight years ago. She lives near Carrboro with her 4.5-year-old daughter Flipper and two dogs. She is single in marital status only, surrounded by friends, family, and her daughter's very involved and loving father. She works part-time and tries to be as involved as possible in her daughter's school, The Emerson Waldorf School, where Flipper is a kindergartner. She likes wood, glass and other natural materials for toys, loves the principles of Waldorf education and hates plastic. She might be the only person in the world with no TV and who hasn't been to a movie in 15 years, but races to the mailbox every Saturday for the most recent issue of People magazine. In other words, a contradiction. Or just human.
Leigh appears Fridays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh on her blog Flipper and Me.
Comments
I HATE the sound of whistling. Why do people who wouldn't sing a song out loud in public feel that we want to hear them whistle it? To me, it's like nails on a chalkboard. Do you know how archaic that expression is going to become? Teachers don't use chalkboards anymore. They use white erasable boards...or if they are really cool, like my friend who teaches at NCSSM, they use little projectors that connect to their laptops. It would be fun to think about what other expressions are going to be archaic. Stream-of-consciously yours, Di.