Travelling with Ditz

Oh, yeah. I do those, "Nah neh nee noh noooooo" type things, too ~ don't they have names for these? I sound like a raving lunatic. Anon





The Arts are more than a little weird ~ to say nothing of the Artists! OK, Ditz has gradually been growing out of her more extreme ADD tendencies but performer that she is she is prone to start up no matter where she is. Have you ever heard singing warm~ups?! Singers wandering round in an agitated state drinking galleons of warm water [warm, cold is bad for the throat], nighing & nanging before a performance I understand & the chances are high that everyone else in the Green Room is doing the same, or similar. Even a compere needs some blubbery lipped relaxation techniques but to hear sounds suddenly emanate from Ditz's room that sound like a horse in extremis or with a bad case of flatulence is unnerving, to say the least. It is unnerving for unwary drivers with little experience of her & boat~fulls of people are starting to think the child's not all there.

Soft ninging is one thing, up & down a scale, but when she starts up with the strangled cat routine, or the one reminiscent of fingernails down a chalk board, I'm generally pretty sure she's forgotten she's in a public venue. People tend to give us a wide berth. No idea why.


Ditz does not travel well [& I'm about to be locked in a plane for 8 hours with her! Give me strength!] Each week as we travel by boat to her various destinations she starts the same refrain. "Talk to me." I'm telling you, it's a real conversation killer! Especially as I wisely travel with a book & generally manage to immerse without trouble. ADD Ditz finds it almost impossible to concentrate on a book when she is travelling. Instead she wants to be entertained & I am meant to be the entertainer.

On a good week Ditz will draw ~ & as she is a good little artist that keeps her happily occupied for some time. The rest of her time she drags out her music & begins sight reading. Within minutes she is humming away softly. Any phrase giving her difficulty gets louder ~ I guess so she can hear herself ~ but of course, if you are going to sing you need to warm up properly first! There is just no way to convey the variety of odd sounds that child manages to produce in the name of Art!




The thing is, on Wednesdays there is a whole roomful of them all doing exactly the same thing. I can't be the only parent suffering from odd noise syndrome.