Baby Mozart

My son has restarted piano lessons for this semester. We went through about 6 months of them starting in January of last year, but when the summer was over, we (I) just didn't have the time or energy to wrestle with lessons again. In addition, although I liked his teacher quite a bit, I didn't feel that she was offering him much more in his lessons than my mom or I could. So mom took over, and she very patiently and bravely took him through to the Christmas season. But then we met a lady at Target (of all places), who was a violinist and highly recommended her son's piano teacher to me.

We had his first lesson last week and it went wonderfully. First of all, she didn't talk down to him and didn't really filter her "big words" for him. She had an obvious goal in mind for the lesson and didn't slow down for a moment, so that he was never twiddling his thumbs while she figured out what to do. Most importantly for me, she was actually teaching him, and not straight out of a book (like Mom and I were doing). Most importantly for E, she made the lesson really fun and they spent most of it laughing at each others' musical antics, both on her grand piano and on the hand drums she had in the studio.

On the drive home after the lesson, I asked E what he thought, and he said "That was actually fun!" Which is exactly what I hoped for, and what I couldn't give him in my lessons.

I realized the other day that piano is one of the few things that I have infinite patience with. I can sit down at the piano and get lost for hours at a time, running the same passage from a piece over and over again. And no matter how often I mess up, I just do it again until it's perfect. If you know me, you know that I am not patient, including with myself, my husband, my son, my family members, and the world at large.

My son inherited (or learned...) my lack of patience. He's a lot better about it than I am, though. But the piano is the only thing that consistently brings the Impatience Monster out. He HATES his 4th finger, or he HATES the way his hands don't stay in the proper position on their own, or he HATES that he can't remember what a sharp note looks like on the page. And I hate having my time wasted, so piano practice is always a struggle for us.

But yesterday, I realized something. He's not used to hearing me practice, because he's usually asleep by then, and he thinks he's the only one in this family of pianists who's ever had to practice to be good. So I disabused him of that notion. I told him which of my fingers is my least favorite. I played my fingerwork practice piece for him, which sounds an awful lot like his (just harder, thank goodness for my pride). I stifled my impatience and I never raised my voice. And he calmed down and had a very good practice.

I struggle with my own impatience on a daily basis. But the piano is one arena where I usually don't have to. So maybe this is one way both my son and I can work on our patience together. And maybe, just maybe, one day he won't hate that finger.

And he won't hate playing the piano.

He's Ready to Buy

D and I are currently in the process of tentative house-hunting.  Tentative as in we won't know if we'll be moving until March 18th, but we want to jump in on the first-time home buyers tax incentive, blah blah blah.  So we're looking, but just keeping our eyes open for now.  For me, that means watching a lot of HGTV House Hunters, as well...

Last weekend there was an open house in a gated community right behind where we currently live, so we trundled ourselves over there after church to see how it was.  The house was lovely and of course we did the typical things like comment on the woodwork and the size of the rooms, whatever.  As we were about to leave, E requested that we go upstairs and look around for a second time, so we obliged.  But apparently what he wanted was to truly examine the floor coverings, because once he had done so, he loudly stated, "Well, we can always take this carpet out."

The realtor, who was standing downstairs, started laughing. Thank goodness.

Because then as we went back downstairs, he perused the carpet on the stairs, and declared, "I don't really like the color of this carpet, but we can change it."

D said he needs to be on a strict regimen of Spike TV every day. But I think we'll value his opinion when the time comes to actually buy our first home together...

Racism

E has been learning about MLK Jr for 3 years now. The 1st year, when he was in pre-K, they watched a video about him, and then they had to draw pictures illustrating what they got out of it.  E drew a picture of a man and a woman and wrote "Martin Luther King Jr got married."

I don't remember what he did last year.  It must have been less memorable.

This year, E asked me out of the blue last Thursday, "Mom, is Martin Luther King Jr dead?"
"Yes, sweetie, he died a long time ago."
"Who harmed him?"
"Someone who didn't agree with what he was doing."
"The white people?"

At least he's getting more than "MLK Jr got married." The boy can be taught!