God Provides "Peter and the Wolf"

By now many of you know about "Peter and the Wolf", the musical compostion and enclosed story. Jesse has loved it ever since its inception into our lives. Don't even know where it came from, second-hand at Chloe's perhaps. I believe we've had to retire it twice in Jesse's short life-span because it gives him serious nightmares. And this is hard scientific fact. There were moments when I thought "Nah, it couldn't be that" but put it to the test and you will get Jesse moaning and crying all night long. But he loves it. And it is stored away, always approached with trepidation by both parent and child. Jesse says, "I don't think I should listen to that--it will give me really bad nightmares. Nevertheless, he can quote it jollily and ask me to tell him the story on the way to school. Fear not, merely talking of it has no correlation to nightmares.

I remember fondly a recent visit (about 2 months ago) to Naan 'n' Curry that intertwined with the topic of Peter and the Wolf. We had wrapped up our dinner there and Darren was at the register paying, when Jesse started chatting it up with some refined looking 60ish women. I don't know all the words of the exchange, but it started with Jesse inquiring "Do you know Peter and the Wolf?" The women said something like "My yes." And then Jesse quizzed them on what instruments played what characters. I could see these women were in a bit of disbelief that they couldn't answer to a 3 year-old. ( I am not saying that J can actually answer his own questions but this was the impression he was making.) They looked at me astounded and said "Isn't that quite advanced for a 3 year-old?" In a flash, I thought I could say, "Well, he's almost 4 actually" or tell them that we're not a family of classical music scholars, we just take what comes our way. But I thought, no let them dote--it's fun to watch these ladies who are enamored with our family. We wound up the conversation, headed towards the exit, Luci reached for a straw and accidentally sent a glass smashing to the floor. So much for the impression of refinement! I thought it was pretty hilarious.

The other day when Darren took Jesse to a playgroung, they just happened upon a pile of books that contained "Peter and the Wolf". What luck! It feels like the fulfillment of 2 years of meditating on Peter and the Wolf. Not that we had ever even hoped for a book! It seems the words mimic the recording exactly. Jesse's favorite page is the one with the fox greedlily looking at the duck. When I read the word "wall" as "wall", Jesse pointed out that on the cd they say "wool"--his rendition of wall said with a British accent. That's when I explained that that was British English, the English that they speak in London where we are moving to. He now requests that we read the book with British accents. Jesse has said that he might get nightmares from reading the book, but so far, read in moderation, he is nightmare-free.

Jesse showed the book to his teacher Monica at school. In fact he waved it to her from across the room and said "Look!" She said, " I bet I know what that is."