My ego took a major beating this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Major.\u00c2\u00a0 During today’s “Mother Goose on the Loose” program, there was one child who kept crying – not constantly crying, but intermittently crying.\u00c2\u00a0 Head down on the floor, hands over the ears, absolutely miserable crying.\u00c2\u00a0 About half-way through the storytime, I realized that she only cried when I was singing.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was reading a story, or doing a fingerplay, she still looked a bit grumpy and out of sorts, but she didn’t cry.\u00c2\u00a0 As soon as I started singing, she’d wail in agony.<\/p>\n
Of course, I do <\/em>think there was more going on here than just my singing:\u00c2\u00a0 the child was about four years old, far older than the other kids attending, and she had to share her mother with her little brother who is about a year old.\u00c2\u00a0 And, she just gave off the\u00c2\u00a0vibe of being generally cranky and\u00c2\u00a0“off” today (mom’s exasperation was palpable).\u00c2\u00a0 I’m guessing that she’s probably coming down with a cold or the stomach bug that has ravaged the town.<\/p>\n But even figuring these factors in, her crying made me very conscious of my singing for the first time in quite a while.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve gotten to the point that I just go ahead and sing during my storytimes, without pausing to think about how dreadful I probably sound, and as a result my storytimes have become pretty fun and fairly popular.\u00c2\u00a0 If I’m not self-conscious, I can allow myself to have fun.\u00c2\u00a0 If I have fun, everyone else seems to follow suit.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, though, I had a few minutes of awkwardness as I paid total attention to myself and my performance.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Luckily, I was able to let it go after those few minutes, and soon I was singing again with gusto.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, my singing stinks, but I haven’t heard any of the moms who sing like angels, either.\u00c2\u00a0 Perfect voices are not what infant storytimes are all about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My ego took a major beating this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Major.\u00c2\u00a0 During today’s “Mother Goose on the Loose” program, there was one child who kept crying – not constantly crying, but intermittently crying.\u00c2\u00a0 Head down on the floor, hands over the ears, absolutely miserable crying.\u00c2\u00a0 About half-way through the storytime, I realized that she only cried when … Continue reading That ol’ ego<\/span>