Music in her blood...or not

Music runs in my family.  My parents play instruments and sing, and each of their seven children (my siblings and I) sing and play an instrument of some kind.  My grandparents played instruments and sang.  Three of four of my uncles have made a career of music of some kind at one point or another in their lives.  My mother taught us harmonies in the car when we drove anywhere and dragged us to nursing homes to regale the elderly with our Von Trapp-like musical styling.  When we get together, we sing and make music.  It's just a natural thing we always did.  I also married a musical guy.  He has a great voice (that he rarely uses) and played musical instruments for years. 

It was always my assumption that my children would be musical, but in truth not all of them are.  Cora sings but only to herself when she thinks no one can hear here.  She flat out refuses to sing with me, every day.  She was nearly four before she could sing a song back to me.  In the car, I love to listen to music and sing, Cora, from babyhood until recently, would cry if I turned it on.  She just wants to talk to me.   Judah came out with music in his veins.  He would match pitch as a six month old when I sang to him.  And now all he wants to do is sing.  He sings songs all the time and I love it.  I also began to noticed a little twinge in my heart when he wants to listen to music and she doesn't, and I thought to myself, this is when it begins, if I let it.  This is where the divide could happen.  Music doesn't run in her veins the way it always has mine.  She isn't 'just like me'.

So many moms and daughters butt heads and have such a hard time being together.  Even my own mother has the power to make me batty.  But this is my only girl.  She and I will share a unique bond through the years.  I will weep when she weeps.  When her best friend says that she is no longer my girl's best friend, I will see the hurt in her face and cry for her, all the while teaching her about sharing her friends with others.  The same thing I struggled to do in my childhood.  I know what it is to be a girl growing into a woman.  I could smother her with motherly wisdom, not leaving room for her to talk or feel, or I could try to mold her into a mini version of myself, or I could let her grow into who she is.

I am choosing today to not focus the thing she does not do, but the things she does.  I hesitate to call her an artist or a dancer or a deep thinker, because those are just things she does.  She IS a wonderful little girl, my daughter, and when we are older, she will be my friend.  Even if she never loves to make music.