Music lessons, quality time with grandkids sound sweet

This week marked 21⁄2 years since I started my granddaughters Sloane and Nakaylee in music classes with Ilisa Peralta at Island Guitar.

Every Monday I pick them up from their schools, and we hang together at Ward Warehouse for a couple of hours.

They have a snack at Dairy Queen or Menchie’s yogurt, visit their favorite shops, check out the new puppies at the pet store, hit me up for quarters to feed the gum ball machines, run up and down the escalators and clown around on the little stage.

I get a little one-on-one time with each while the other has her lesson, and then the two girls of opposite tastes negotiate where we’ll have dinner.

This sounds most mundane, but it’s probably the best time I spend all week.

Between the interactions at Ward and listening to their chatter in the back seat on the long drive home to Kailua, I’m completely in tune with what’s going on in their lives.

I even get to slip in a little grandfatherly knowledge and advice, and the pride swells to occasionally hear them quoting me.

They were 7 and 6 when we started this, and in July, when they share the same birthday, they’ll turn 10 and 9.

The Ward shopkeepers, who know the girls well after having them tear through their stores week after week, comment on how much bigger and prettier they’re getting.

They’ve also grown musically, long ago graduating from the ukulele to the guitar.

Sloane is one of the youngest members of the School of Rock band at Voyager Charter School and also plays rhythm guitar for a preteen punk and metal band called the Random Weirdos.

The Weirdos have developed a tight sound since they formed at Kailua Music School in 2011, earning them a weekly gig at Kailua Farmers Market and a chance to open for the popular band Pimpbot at Hawaiian Brian’s last weekend. They’re part of a show at Anna O’Brien’s on June 7.

Nakaylee demonstrated her musical development on Mother’s Day when she flawlessly played and sang a song she composed herself called "Thank You So Much Mom."

The happy look on the faces of both mother and daughter made the weekly treks to Ward worth everything.

After this week’s lesson, Sloane and I were discussing the death of her uncle she recently visited on the mainland, and she put an arm around my shoulder and assured me that she’d cry for me when I go.

I said, "Just think of me when you ring out a chord on the guitar I put in your hands."

The way she plays her power chords at maximum distortion, I’m sure I’ll hear it wherever I am.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.