Recitals!

As the school year comes to a close, so does our 2018-2019 season of music. Both kids got to participate in their spring recitals - Adam as a student of the Let's Play Music program, which teaches fundamentals to 4-7 year olds, and Ellie as an individual piano student with our wonderful Miss Bri.

Mimi and Poppy were lovely enough to come to watch the kids perform, and Grizz managed to catch Ellie's performance (Gigi and Sara were doing Special Olympic competitions, so of course, I taped the performance for their benefit.)

Adam's program started off rather badly. He was walking up to the front, then realized he didn't need his music books. He turned around to jog back to me and smashed into a chest bump with a little girl heading up front. Because he was tired and lacks emotional resilience, he started sobbing about how he didn't want to perform anymore. I took him out of the space so that he wouldn't have to torture everyone with his crying, and went out to the car to get Lamby, while he told me to put him down and leave him alone, that he was scared, that he'd never done a recital before (dude, I cannot leave you to scream in the church, I'm not going to leave you alone, I'm sorry you're scared, but you were in the recital a year ago, nutbar.)

The good news is after some snuggling with Lamby and lots of fidgeting during the performances of the first year students, he rallied for the piano portion of the show.

He was glad he went up to perform, and in fact, gave one of his hilarious "yes!" first bump gestures.

NAILED IT.

He said he was glad he got up and played the piano, and I'm glad as well. Tim was too busy crying with joy.

Ellie's performance was about an hour later, and she did a lovely job. I'm so proud of all of the progress she's made this year. I love hearing her practice during the week (when she's not whining at me and Tim about it - my fave is when she tells Tim he doesn't know what he's talking about, as though he didn't play piano for a decade.)

And we got to go out to lunch with Mimi and Poppy afterwards, then everyone took a much needed nap.

So now Adam will be on a break until fall. For the third year, the kids write and perform their own piece of music. Ellie will still take her private lessons over the summer, but with breaks for vacations and camp. My goal is to get everyone to sit down and practice at least twice a week so that we don't lose the skills they've gained. And in the meanwhile, maybe I"ll work on practicing more, as I am Miss Bri's worst student.