The Coveted Notebook

Now that Zoe is six, Monday night piano lessons have been added to her schedule. Surprisingly enough, she was really nervous for her first lesson because, as she put it, "I can't play those long songs with all those notes all crazy and stuff like the brothers can." I wanted to tell her that it's really okay because that one song that Zach is playing right now? Well, let me just tell you that I really, truly, honestly despise that song, but since I have to be a supportive parent all I can say every time I hear it is "that sounds nice, dear." But as soon as he is done with this piece of music that sounds like nothing but cacophony, that sheet music will be known as kindling before either of my other kids has a chance to play even one measure of it.

Since she was nervous, I made sure that she was completely prepared for her first lesson. Cute bag (aka repurposed dance bag), new piano books (aka new workbook, two-times-hand-me-down lesson book) and a new box of crayons for the workbook -- check, check and check. And after seeing that the piano lessons required new things and finding out that they would cost money, her excitement level ratcheted up a few notches.

At the end of the first lesson, everything seemed to have went smoothly, her nerves had disappeared and she was genuinely excited for the following week. That's when her teacher said "Zoe, where is your lesson notebook so that I can write down what you need to practice?" DAMMIT! A notebook! The boys have been hauling a lesson notebook for the last nine years, HOW COULD I FORGET THE NOTEBOOK?

As soon as we got home, I immediately started searching for a suitable notebook. Since I love browsing through office supply stores, small notebooks and pens tend to accumulate in my house so I knew I would find at least one. And that's when I spied it: medium size, covered in multicolored daisies, with a translucent plastic laminate cover. I hated to part with it, but I knew that Zoe would love it.

Just as I was about to stick it in her polka-dot piano bag, I looked at the front of the notebook and noticed something stuck to the first page, under the laminate cover. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this notebook would never work.

For those of you that are fans of The Mean Mom on Facebook, you know (or maybe you don't) that the kick ass cross-stitched Mean Mom profile picture was created by an amazing girl, aka Stitch Out Loud, and given to me as a birthday gift from my husband. Well, when I received the gift, there was a sticker attached to the packaging that I loved so much that I stuck it inside a notebook. My favorite daisy-covered, plastic laminate notebook:

Sorry, Zoe, but I guess you're just going to have to use a plain black spiral notebook for now. However, if you promise me that you'll never, ever play "Toccata" from Khachaturian's Children's Album, Book 2, well, then maybe someday I'll buy you your very own daisy-covered notebook. But your's won't have a special sticker.

To get your own pieces of cross stitched greatness, look no further than here:

ST!#CH OUT LOUD

SENDING AWESOMENESS AND OBSCENITIES INTO THE WORLD ONE STITCH AT A TIME.