My "Mommy Moment"

Abigail is 7 and she had her very first piano recital last night. She did very well.

We started piano lessons with Abigail sometime in February. I didn't want to give her lessons but Daniel is insisting I give all the children lessons. He feels it is wasteful to pay somebody else to teach them to play the piano when I'm a very capable pianist. In a way he is right. I just don't want to give my own children lessons!

When we first started, it was very hard for me!!! I've been been playing the piano since I was 7, so to have to THINK about all those basic and try to explain them to a 7 year old was no small task for me!! But once she had the basics, it went better. I'm pleased with how well she seems to have picked it up. I have students who have been taking lessons longer than she who are still struggling with some things she has already nailed down.

She was very excited about the recital. Memaw and Pappy couldn't come this time so Memaw sent us to JCPenney's to buy Abi a new dress to wear. Last Saturday I had her play her song for the residents of the nursing home where we volunteer and she did very well. I wanted her to have SOME experience of having played in front of people before the recital!! How very intimidating to go on the platform in front of all those people (possibly 100?) and play that giant black piano that mommy plays all the time!!

At the recital last night, she trotted right up there, sat down, and played her song from memory with minimal mistakes. She kept saying "I played the 'C' twice". Cracked me up. But it was kinda difficult to leave "teacher" mode and enter "mommy" mode for the recital. Plus, I'm such a perfectionist myself that I wanted to say "it was ALMOST perfect". I bit my tongue and congratulated her. As we were leaving she was already talking about what song she wants to play for her next recital! LOL She has no clue how much better a pianist she is going to be in the next 6 months or a year. She is so happy with her current accomplishment that she can't see past it to realize that by the time the next recital rolls around, she is going to think these beginner songs are silly!