Smarter than Me

Sometimes I get the sinking feeling that my kids might actually be smarter, or at least more talented, than I am. at least at certain things.  I had this sense the other night when the Family of No went to the Band Family Night at the high school. 

Because I am now a veteran Band Mom, I knew what was going to happen: as part of Band Family Night, the band director has the kids teach the parents a small part of the marching show.  This probably sounds like fun, and it is, except for some small problems that have surfaced in the last three years:

1.  I have no sense of rhythm.  Or really, any idea which of my feet is my left, and which is the right. Also,  I evidently have no idea what the phrase "take small steps" means in relationship to marching band.

2.  The Teenager has a calling as a Marine Corps drill sergeant.

Therefore, this activity led to some shenanigans, which mostly involved the Teenager saying things to me like "MOM! Don't hold my clarinet like that! MOM! You're doing it all wrong! It's a good thing this isn't real practice because you would be getting called out because you are stepping all over the place and you are supposed to be standing in a STRAIGHT LINE! and you took FIFTEEN steps and you were only supposed to take FOURTEEN!".

In my defense, I only took fourteen steps.  The Teenager completely miscounted how many steps I took.  I don't count the tiny little one I took so that I could end up where I thought I was supposed to end up, which actually turned out to be where I was not supposed to end up- I was supposed to end up six inches off to the left, or maybe it was the right.  In my opinion, correction steps don't count, just like broken cookies don't count if you're adding up calories, but the Teenager didn't seem to share that philosophy.

I would also like to point out here that the clarinet is actually MY clarinet, since I am the one who paid for it. If I want to hold my clarinet the wrong way, I will hold my clarinet the wrong way- except that I kept getting reprimanded by the Teenager, who kept glaring at me every time I even thought about not holding the clarinet the right way.

At some point I looked up in the stands, and I could swear that the Son of Never Stops Eating and the Dad of No were snickering at me.  I'm sure they weren't, because I personally thought that I was doing really well at this marching thing, considering that I've never really done it before, and that while I've been told by well-meaning friends and family members who are looking out for me that I should consider not singing or dancing in public, those things are not marching. Besides, it's all in the attitude, right?  And I thought I had a really great attitude! I wasn't complaining or anything, even though I was constantly being corrected by my drill-sergeant teenager.

Based on the final critique, however, I'm not very good at marching either.

This is why I don't offer criticism after watching a marching band performance.  I am way out of my area of expertise and I know it.  It's really better just to say something like "I'm always proud of you for working so hard", or "I missed it because I was making nachos in the concession stand".  If I offered up something like "you looked like you were a bit out of formation there", or "was that your clarinet sounding kind of screechy?", we'd both know I was just making it up, because after my marching performance it's clear I would have literally no clue what I was actually talking about.