There are just some days when you feel like you should not
have gotten out of bed. You know, the
kind of day when every SINGLE thing goes wrong?
You wake up exhausted, burn breakfast, forget to send your child’s lunch
with him/her to school, drop every item that you pick up and cannot manage to
accomplish any task that you undertake.
Try as you might, you are not able to escape the impending cloud of doom that is
hanging over your head and the inevitable result is that you are in a mood so
foul that the slightest provocation will result in serious injury to innocent
bystanders.
So, what do you do?
What could possibly tame the insane shrew that you have become? And most importantly, how do you save your
poor innocent children from your fiery wrath?
The answer is pure and simple:
it’s time to “get down.” When I
realize that my inner Hulk is about to emerge, I quickly grab my cell phone,
hook it up to the kitchen speakers and choose a song that will kick my cranky
ass out of its funk.
This method is complete GENIUS as far as I’m concerned. Think about it – how can you possibly be in a
bad mood when your favorite song is on?
As soon as you hear the opening bars, you can feel the tension begin to
drain from your shoulders. A few more
seconds into the song, you find the corners of your mouth tugging into a smile
and before you know it, your booty can’t help but start shakin’.
It is usually about this time when my boys peek their heads
around the corner to see what their crazy mother is up to in the kitchen. (Because of the previous appearances of Demon
Mommy, they had high tailed it into the living room and sought safe haven in
cartoons.) The kitchen is where all of the
serious dancing takes place in my house - most likely due to the facts that a)
it is the largest open space we have and b) my work in this room is NEVER done.
Some of you may have one particular song that does the trick
every time, but I have a variety of go-to songs to lighten my mood. “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the
Waves is a definite crowd pleaser and has the added benefit of being child
friendly. The eighties train continues
with “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benetar, “Beat It” by Michael Jackson
and “Mickey” by Tony Basil. But no one
is bigger in my house than Billy Joel, so on a bad day, you will probably find
us cranking up “Only the Good Die Young”, “Keeping the Faith” or “It’s Still
Rock and Roll to Me.” I have yet to find
another songwriter who has mastered the feel good melody as well as he has.
My wonderful boys bring a whole new level of humor to the
dance party in the kitchen. They have
created the most amazing musical renditions you will ever lay eyes on. My nine-year-old gives a jaw dropping
performance of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” complete with Steven Tyleresque facial
expressions and wicked dance moves. My
three-year-old opts for the Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll.” Watching the pure joy on his face as he hears
those unforgettable opening chords kicks Demon Mommy to the curb. And his little swagger as he carries around
his Elmo guitar and sings is PRICELESS!
Unfortunately for my poor boys, they have inherited their
mother’s tone deaf singing, but this fact only makes us smile more. They belt out tunes at the top of their lungs
followed by peals of laughter at their vocal fortitude. Then they beg me to take video after video of
their musical masterpieces to watch later that evening with popcorn. I smile as I imagine them forming a band of
their own one day. And I enjoy each and
every moment of our dance marathon secure in the knowledge that the two toy
drum sets (because one just wasn’t enough) that my husband’s mother sent are
safely tucked away upstairs, far, far away from our current activities. Nothing kills your newly found good mood like
loud, erratic drum beats. Excedrin,
anyone?
The great thing about saving your sanity with music is that
you can partake in this method even when outside the home, because bad mood or
not, your kids have places to go and people to see. If you’re like me, the car is one of the
places where my bad mood is magnified.
On a good day, I have no tolerance for obnoxious and/or careless
drivers, but when I am in the depths of despair, the level of profanity that
can come out of my mouth reaches a whole new level. And swearing like a sailor is simply not a
skill that I want to teach my wee ones. (Although if my father were alive, he would remind me that this is a very
important part of a child’s education.
More on that topic in a later blog.)
When in the car, I rely on the wonders of satellite radio
for my musical escape. I spend most of
my time with XM’s 80s on 8 and 90s on 9.
It is rare that I do not find a well-loved tune on either one of those
stations and I soon find my mind casting back through an array of memories
from my youth. “Manic Monday” by the
Bangles reminds me of junior high school, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy
Joel reminds me of high school, “Shoop” by Salt-N-Pepa reminds me of college
and I cannot hear “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors without remembering driving
down the California coast with my older sister in her Cabriolet with the top
down. Full body dancing may not be
possible in a car, but your head can bop, your shoulders can shimmy and you can
sing at the top of your lungs – preferably with the windows closed so as not to
scare passersby. Five minutes of good
music in the car will cure whatever ails you.
Or at least put it off for an hour or two.
Now if by some odd twist of fate, I happen to be on my own
(in the car or otherwise), I turn to Prince to shake my blues away. “Darling Nikki” and “Get Off” are two of my
absolute favorites, but they are not songs that my young men need to hear. Explaining concepts like “masturbation”, “grinding”,
“getting served” and “one night stands” is just not an idea that I will
entertain. So Prince is a secret that
Demon Mommy keeps to herself for those days when she is actually ALONE and can
listen to something a little more provocative.
And as a very wise friend of mine once said, “There is nothing that a
little Prince can’t fix.” Amen to that,
Kel.
The best part is when my husband comes home at the end of
the day to find the three of us shaking our rumps all over the kitchen with
huge grins on our faces. Long forgotten
is the epic tantrum that my three-year-old threw over not having the precise
shade of purple crayon that his heart desired and the snark that my
nine-year-old sent my way for daring to ask him to do his homework in a timely
manner. We have exorcised our black
moods with the power or music (and the resulting booty shaking). If by chance, my husband has had a bad day as
well, at least he is met with a picture that is guaranteed to make him laugh. And if that is not enough to lift his
spirits, you can bet that Metallica will be up next.
I think that you will find that this brilliant stress
reducing technique will work 99.999999% of the time. For the remaining 0.000001% of the time, I
find that French fries and chocolate go a long way in taking the edge off…
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