November 26, 2008

My heroes

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew and Mark headed out to Best Buy on a Sunday afternoon to buy, if I recall, a memory card for the camera. They returned an hour later with only one thing. Guitar Hero for the Wii. I was not particularly pleased with the purchase.

We sort of "owed" Andrew Guitar Hero from last Christmas but I felt as though we had made up for that obligation with the purchase of the Wii. And, I felt sure that he wasn't going to be able to manuever it and it would turn out to be nothing but an expensive source of frustration to his little hands. Also, admittedly, I thought that Mark had purchased it mainly because Mark wanted it for himself and I could picture him playing it a few times and forgetting about it.

At first, I was right. It was simply too difficult for Andrew to hold the guitar, hit the chords, strum at the right time and just generally hold it all together. His first attempts resulted in lots of missed notes, short play times before being booed offstage by the Guitar Hero band and, as predicted, disappointment. What I failed to remember was that he's his father's son. He was determined and wasn't afraid to fail a time or twenty.

Also, I underestimated how much Thomas would love to watch Andrew play Guitar Hero. He became his cheering section and adopted an old toy guitar we had purchased at a garage sale as his very own Guitar Hero gear.

That brings us to today when I can proudly tell you that Andrew has mastered several songs on the Easy setting and can play them with 80% accuracy from start to finish. Thomas has learned the lyrics to songs such as Pat Benatar's, Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Foghat's, Slow Ride. I'm torn as to whether it's cute or troubling to hear a two-year-old begging for someone to play Barracuda so he can dance along. Along the way they've both perfected their rockstar stance and their best air guitar moves. I think they've possibly seen those modeled by Daddy?

The best part is that when Andrew's finished, he'll let me play and Thomas will serve as my backup. I can't really think of a better way to spend a cold Saturday morning!

Evidence of their new found passion...

If you need us, we'll be in our basement fighting over the guitar.

5 comments:

Rosemary said...

When I closed my eyes, it was 1980 and Mark was playing that turquoise guitar for hours on end. Who else would take an electric guitar on a bell trip to England without any way to hook it up and with having to dismantle and then reassemble it each time they traveled to a new location? Andrew AND Thomas are chips off the old block. Rock on, Andrew & T! You're the most!!!

Maria said...

I can't stop watching that video! I LOVE IT! Andrew is so cute because he is concentrating so hard and Thomas is a true rock machine!

Stephanie said...

So is Rock Band on the Christmas list? If only Wyatt had seen this - then he would refer to Aunt Susan's basement as the place with blue drumsticks AND guitars!

Kate and Dennis said...

I LOVE it! I watched the video a bazillion times and couldn't stop giggling.

Amber said...

I thought it was quite hilarious when Andrew started naming off all of the songs he liked to play....most from the 70's and 80's of course!