He's with the band

Music is a huge part of our lives so of course we are hoping Ethan will be a music lover/maker as well.  In utero, besides listening to me singing along to the radio at every opportunity, he had two types of noteworthy exposure to music.

1) I sing in the band at my church. And for those who aren't familiar with WellSpring, I do very literally mean the band.  We have keys, guitar, and drums along with lead and backup vocals.  Most often I'm singing harmonies and standing right in front of the drums.  So pretty much every Sunday between 11/23 (conception via IUI) and 8/3, Ethan was exposed to our awesomeness every Sunday whether he was in the mood for it or not.  Incidentally, he has no problem sleeping through the music now which is a blessing in its own rite.

2) Once he was big enough that we could feel and see him moving around inside, we found a toddler radio station on Pandora and would put an iPhone on my belly with the music playing as loud as we could make it.  Ethan would go nuts!  Rach and I would watch the iPhone bouncing as Ethan was wiggling to the music.  It brought us such joy on several different occasions.

So, the story for today is about Ethan becoming a part of the band today.  Before today, I've never actually had him up on stage with me when we've been rehearsing the songs for a service.  Rach and I typically drive separately because there are 2 services and I go to both whereas she and Ethan just come for the 2nd service.  Today though, we were consolidated into 1 service because our usual worship space was in use and we were relocated to a larger space that could accommodate a larger crowd.  Ethan was wide awake, so I brought him up on stage with me and held him (like shown in the picture) for a good 20 minutes while we ran through all our songs in their entirity.  He was so chill!  After a few of the songs he would coo a bit and although his arms were pretty still the whole time, he had his hand resting on mine and his fingers were just wiggling around a bit.  Future guitar player perhaps?

After being wide awake during the entire rehearsal, he proceeded to fall asleep and snore (loudly enough that someone 3 seats away was looking over and smiling) through Ken's entire sermon. 

For those that are fans of keys rather than guitars, don't give up hope yet.  Our keyboard player, Harry, has a special place in our hearts.  When we found out we were having a boy, we told the band by informing them we were going to have a little Harry.  Ethan's nickname (among an isolated few people) is little H.  He's got nice long fingers and I can definitely see  him learning to play.  It appears as though he's already dreaming about playing keys too.