Distracted

The plan was to fill today's post with lots of pictures like this.

I was going to tell you how cute they were playing their instruments. How happy Meaty was to be allowed to pound on something with wild abandon. How Pork Chop glowed with pleasure at having a mic in her hands. How Bird was a guitar prodigy and destined to someday win fame and fortune at some geek convention tournament. But while I got the shots that would tell that story, the reality was a little different.

For some odd reason the reality looked more like this

or sometimes this

(note the intense looks of concentration on our faces. And my hands are so fast they can not be caught on camera. I'm the Jet Li of the Rock Band world)

We didn't mean to hog the game. I swear we bought this game for the kids. We had the best of intentions. We thought "wouldn't it be fun to play all together?" We bought it with the intention of playing it as a family, parents and children together. Family fun, that's a good thing right?

The Greatest and I returned from the store and set the game up so it would be there to surprise the kids when they got home from school. We could just picture their little faces lighting up when the saw their surprise. It's the kind of moment a parent lives for, fulfilling a wish of their children. We were so excited for them, and for us. We were going to live for weeks of the "cool parent" points this would earn us.

Then we figured since everything was already set up that we should mess around with it, you know, learn the basics so we could show the kids how to play. How innocently an addiction is born. That's where the plan all went down-hill in a big way.

Two hours later The Greatest reluctantly left to fetch the kids from school. Their reaction to the surprise did not disappoint. They squealed with delight when they saw the instruments. They dropped their school things on the spot, so eager to play. Being the "good parents" that we are we told the kids they would have to finish their homework before they could play (and while they were doing their homework WE could play just a little more). Groans of protest were followed by the fastest I have ever seen Meaty do his homework. But The Greatest and I had one more song to finish, then a set to finish, then a gig, and hey, that gig opened up another venue, and just one more song!

At six-thirty we realized we'd better stop to feed the kids something that resembled dinner.

That's when the children finally got their chance to play. And, well, they got booed off the stage. They switched instruments, and got booed off the stage. Then they fought over the mic, and got booed off the stage. Then, thankfully, dinner was ready.

(Which was when the baby saw her chance to finally have the drums all to herself)

After dinner it was so late it was bedtime, no more Rock Band for the children. We put them to bed and hurried back to the X-box, after all, we had a gig in Montreal! I don't know how the kids fell asleep with all the music and the banging and the crowds cheering. We played every song that came with the disc, we tried taking it off easy but The Greatest didn't like that, so we switched instruments instead. But I didn't love that so we switched back. We went shopping with the money we earned from our gigs searching for new clothes for our characters, but in the end we didn't buy anything. Around one a.m., when our 98% was looking more like 84% or worse, we decided we'd better go to bed. Sweet Pea doesn't go easy on us just because we stayed up into the wee hours having fun without her.

I got absolutely zero knitting done yesterday. And my hand looks like this

(you try taking a picture of your dominant hand, it's really hard)

but it was so much fun. I highly recommend it.

I'm anxiously waiting for The Greatest to wake up so we can play some more, we still haven't unlocked L.A. And I can't wait for The Greatest to go to work tonight. If I can pry the mic from Pork Chop's hands I'm gonna try the vocals. Knitting will have to wait just a little bit longer.