We’re on Day One of the ten part series: “Mommy Like a Rock Star”.
To catch up, visit here.
We just returned from a few days of traveling, visiting Hubs on tour. Watching my kids ping off the walls of the tour bus made me think about the intricacies of touring life, and some of the parallels between being a touring rock band and being a mom with small children. (No, seriously!)
So for the next ten days, we’ll embark on a journey where I spill everything I know about rock star touring, as it applies to…well, Mommying. So get your old Harley boots on, and get ready to Mommy like a Rock Star.
Part 1- Make a Splash
As a band on tour, there are some areas you just don’t skimp on. Sound, lights, a killer backdrop to really set you apart from the opening bands. These are places you spend the money to insure that the rest of the tour is worthwhile. Because if those elements aren’t right, you may as well stay home.
As a mom, we have countless opportunities every day to impress our small charges, to put on a great show. The part that always amazes me is how little it actually takes to send my children into spasms of joy. Think about it…when you tell your kids they can play with all four colors of Play Doh, it’s like you just promised them an encore where Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison both play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” WITH Kermit the Frog.
But it’s too easy for us to get bogged down in the mundanity of “Why it’s not Practical.” The list of things a Mama can say no to every day is very long. You can’t have that for breakfast, you can’t wear that to school, that’s enough TV, we can’t bake cookies/go to the park/go elephant hunting...You get the idea.
I can tell I’ve fallen into that trap when I see my five year old’s shoulders slump down and a look of “Why ask?” cross her face. Then I know it’s time to say yes to something ridiculous, and fast. That’s when we wind up with twenty feet of paper across the floor, or pancakes for dinner.
And while there’s always ways to wow them at home, I find even more opportunities to step outside the box when we’re on the road. We travel quite a bit, and my goal with each trip is to make them more comfortable navigating the world. I want them to be adaptable, and to feel like they can handle whatever may come up in the course of a trip.
On a recent jaunt to Boston, my Mom was with us, bringing our total party to five. That meant I had to order a car from the airport, as a taxi wouldn’t squeeze us in. Since a standard car wouldn’t fit us, I was clicking on an SUV- when a window popped up and said, “For $17.95 more, you can have a stretch limo!” I pictured the look on my thirteen year old’s face and was sold.
Indeed, the look on his face at the airport was as priceless as I’d hoped. But the best part was when, as I struggled to get the booster seats properly tethered, he said, “Mom! You’ve got a lollipop stick stuck to your butt!”
Well, of course I do. Because that’s so rock and roll.
How do you make your tour feel more like a festival and less like a forced march?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=11615697-7220-47f5-9a08-6a8e0fa52d8d)
|
Twitter links powered by Tweet This v1.8.3, a WordPress plugin for Twitter.
Comments (13)