I don't want to make it a big deal, but it's important to him. He no longer says his name when you ask him. He says "Drummer ko."
There was a point when he'd insist on watching drum cover videos all the time. So Meytal Cohen videos as soon as he'd wake up, and then more Meytal before he went to sleep.
And then he got to this phase where he'd listen to nothing but From Can to Can't (from Dave Grohl's Sound City album).
Every time we went somewhere that had a drum set, we'd have to wrestle him away from the set. It's especially embarrassing when there's ALREADY a band playing.
Mamita got him a plastic drum set that for a time was his everyday thing. At first the beats were just noise, accompanying the hum of us praying the landlord doesn't evict us.
And then over time the noise started acquiring order, and we realised the boy could do 16 beats.
Nobody taught him how to drum. Now and then Chris would point out what the names of all the different parts of his drum set were until that set broke down and he took to turning our foldable chairs into a set, announcing which seat was which drum. This is how we plan to educate him - by exposure, encouraging his interests by asking questions and by guiding him to relevant information.
The drumming died down with his discovery of Peppa Pig and the English language, shapes and colors. Numbers are still sort of a learning curve, but he likes singing to them. (Note: If you want to get your kids started on the alphabet and reading and you have an Ipad, download Endless Alphabet and the other apps. We just left the apps on the ipad and he found them himself, so it wasn't forced. Yes we do screen time. We are conscious about the adverse effects and assure you that's not all he does.)
And then Imadyina regrouped and we couldn't find a babysitter for our first rehearsal. So we took him to the studio and now the drumming's returned big time.
He's liked System of a Down for some time. One night, we noticed he was actually playing along.
Now before you get excited, this is important: He's still learning. We try to keep ourselves from gushing, and truth is when you're exposed to the banging 24/7, it doesn't get an extreme response from us. Please don't make it a big deal that he's a toddler playing the drums. By drummer standards, he's not even that good yet. He just enjoys doing it and enjoys learning, I wouldn't want him to do it to serve as entertainment. Yes, we've seen all of the baby drum videos on youtube. Our goal is not to get a spot on Ellen. Children don't know how to handle too much attention.
So enough yawyaw na from mommy.
*Karl says every family has an Uncle Boy. He's taken it upon himself to honor the tradition.
