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by Cindy Hsu
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Children are enjoying munchies, music and Madeline at The Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue. Hundreds are enjoying Madelines High Tea every weekend, and leading the musical fun is Tina DeVaron, a Manhattan mom who sings kids' favorites by day and mommy favorites by night.

CBS 2 News' Cindy Hsu sat down with DeVaron to talk about her performances.

How and at what age did you start writing motherhood music?

I started writing songs when I was 32, when I had my first baby, Nicholas. At the time I was playing piano and singing five nights a week at the Waldorf. I would come home, feed him at 3 or 4 a.m., and as we sat on the sofa in our big West End Ave living room, watching the sun rise over Broadway, the songs would start arriving in my head.

What issues do you write about?

The first song I wrote was about my new baby. It was called "Growing Pains, Growing Pleasures." It was great -- oh, OK, I was still rhyming pleasures with treasures, but the important thing was, the spigot had opened. As if the nasty editor inside my head who had always said "Shut up, stupid!" had suddenly ... shut up. As my kids grew, so did my confidence. I wrote about everything, for all genres. I was writing tender songs about my love for my children while my dance tunes "Wake It Up" and "If I Close My Eyes" were blowing the roofs off gay nightclubs and climbing the Billboard charts.

Motherhood just lends itself to music -- everything is so big, so momentous. You are creating life, then sustaining the growth of a real person ... whom you just happen to love more than yourself. And then, just when you think you've got it mastered, everything changes! In "I Still Breathe," I write about trying to find my self when the big issues threaten to obliterate me. "Nothing but the Love" is about my desire for my kids to remember only the good moments, not the crap of daily life. "Gravity" is, well, NOT about celestial physics -- it's about what you see when you look in the mirror! "Rocking Chair" is about one sublime end of the parenting spectrum, and "Put a Lock on the Bedroom Door" is about the other (read: sex).

From my new CD, WATER OVER STONES, the topics have grown up along with the boys. "Barely Still a Boy, Almost a Man" describes my son growing to be taller than me. "Payback Time" talks about that moment when you realize your teenage kid's heart-stopping, terrifying behavior is exactly ... what YOU did. "Magic Year" came to me as my son prepared for college and so many moments rushed back -- the day I put him on a school bus for the first time, his first touchdown pass in high school, his transition from my house to the world at large. In my songwriting, sometimes the words come first -- even just talking about the situations and images, they're like poetry (or jeremiads, or shaggy dog stories). Other times a melody arises first. It can sit, wordless, for a long time before I find the right lyric to match -- but if I'm lucky, the words jump into the song like a person into a big comfy chair.

Tell me about Madeline's High Tea.

Madeline's High Tea happens on Fridays through Sundays at Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel from noon to four p.m. The entrance is on Madison Avenue between 76th and 77th streets (the same entrance you use for the Café Carlyle). The Madeline's Tea children's menu includes a high tea, with sandwiches, scones or crumpets and jam and Devonshire cream, plus cupcakes, all for $24. Other children's menu items include teeny burgers and fries, chicken fingers and the tastiest mac and cheese you can imagine. There is no cover charge.

At Madeline's Tea, we make magical moments. I play and sing every conceivable song children ask for. (So far the two most requested songs are "Doe a Deer," and of course, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" -- but "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Old McDonald" are close behind.) I love doing it. There we are, at a superb Steinway grand, surrounded by the whimsical Bemelman's murals -- the kids are on cloud nine! Singing
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow," we are singing a work of great art while sitting inside another great work of art. These children and their parents (and often their grandparents!) will never forget the experience.

Reservations are required. Please call 212.744.1600.

You have a special Halloween Tea coming up.

On this coming Sunday, October 29, 2006 we will be starting a new tradition at Madeline's Tea: an in-costume High Tea Halloween Party. We invite all children coming to tea that day to join us in their Halloween finery. I plan to come in a costume (not a scary one, in case parents of little ones are concerned) and sing special seasonal favorites, and some songs that haven't even been composed yet -- tunes I like to improvise on the spot about the children and their costumes. We will have a special menu, favors, and prizes to round out the festivities.

Advice for moms?

Fire your editor. Wait. Are you a story editor, Cindy? Whew. Motherhood is an incredible fertile time -- it defines the word -- and it can unlock so much creativity from within. The first secret is finding the best outlet for the creativity, what fits you best -- clothing design, cooking, business, art, it's ALL creative. And then it's about carving out the time -- making yourself pay attention to yourself amid all the challenges of the family, work, marriage, etc. Fear is the biggest obstacle, but fear can be overcome -- and often it's motherhood itself that blows it away. That's the way it was for me. In the end, it's half about passion and half about brute force. And it's all about motherhood..

Final Thoughts?

I need sleep. You rock, Cindy.

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