Friday, December 4, 2015

12-04-15 The Time I Sang Karaoke...

I'm not a great singer... I sang a lot when I was younger, but I'm an alto and I'm a vocal follower. I can only really carry a tune if I have a strong singer beside me. I can sing along to songs on the radio, but take away the voice singing and I am completely lost. I married into a musical family, but it never really rubbed off on me... Sigh...

I went to a karaoke box once. I had a Japanese teacher that loved karaoke and invite me to join her and some friends. Tim, my sister and I went. A karaoke box is pretty much a small private room you can rent that has all the karaoke equipment set up for you. You bring your own food and drinks. It was quite an interesting experience, but cemented my realization that it just isn't my thing. It was fun, but I just wasn't good at it. 

Fast forward to this week. C has been talking constantly about an event at her school where they were going to have... Wait for it... FROZEN karaoke. She informed me that she and her friend Kaia had been practicing all week and they were ready. With all the excitement about it, I agreed to take her and Big E this evening. She signed up for a 6:30 slot. I assumed once we got there and she saw the people watching that she would get incredibly shy and back out.

The event was a holiday bazaar at her school. There were a lot of vendors, food, Santa, and yes... Frozen karaoke. We got there right at 6:30 so I took C to the hallway that they were doing the singing in. To her disappointment, her friend was not there, but the music teacher asked her if she wanted to sing anyways. C nodded yes, and the teacher found another girl to sing with her. They sang Do You Want To Build A Snowman?


She was nervous, but she did a great job. I was surprised she actually did it. Afterwards we walked around looking at all the vendors. When we made our way past the karaoke booth again C said she wanted to see if her friend was there yet. She wasn't. Then C turned to me with big eyes and said she really, really, really wanted to sing the Elsa song (Let It Go.) And would I please sing with her. 

That's right... Me, sing karaoke in front of a group of strangers. I wanted to say no so badly,  but I knew it meant a lot to her, and I knew it was good for her confidence if I encouraged her...

So there I was, singing a song half out of my vocal range in front of a group of total strangers. I pulled the mic away from my lips when the high parts came, and made sure I just watched C the entire time. Talk about being out of my comfort zone! Seriously, the things we do for our kids!!! But I could see on her face that I had made the right decision.

The rest of the evening was pretty nondescript. There was a pretty cool train set up for the kids to watch and we did that for awhile. C saw some friends from school and they colored and played together. Naturally it was total meltdown time when it was time to leave, but we made it home relatively unscathed! (Except maybe my pride! Ha!

To be honest, though, I cherish the times I get to take her to her school. As a working mom, I don't get to see her in that element very much, and I'm sad that I miss out on a lot of opportunities to be involved, so when events like this come along, I jump at them. 







I snuck in on them sleeping this morning and snapped this pic. It is extremely rare for me to get in the room before Big E wakes up, so it was nice to see them both fast asleep!