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| WG and I, circa 2009 |
I'm settling into the fall routine. I'm relishing all the one-on-one time with the now 2 year old Dude, but I miss WonderGirl all morning and I get a bit giddy when I get to pick her up from school. Thankfully, the Dude still naps like a champ for 3 hours, so we get plenty of music/us time too in the afternoon.
Except - does the afternoon slump do something to you too? As I put the Dude down to sleep and think about all I need to get done, I have this insane urge to join him. Some days I do. Especially recently, since everything has been all up in the air. We had Nana visit, the husband and I had a fabulous weekend away in New York City, and all of us have gotten varying degrees of colds. Some days you just have to give yourself a pass and know that it's okay to drop a few balls every now and then.
But I notice on the days that I end up lazying out and we don't do violin and piano lessons/practice, things tend to go south later. Sure, I had a little more initial energy since I didn't expend any turning on my inner music teacher, but both our fuses seem to get shorter as the day goes on. The light in our home dims just a bit.
Today when the afternoon slump hit, I sat on the couch, breathing through only half of my nose, and tried to psyche myself into gathering up WG for violin and piano. "I don't have the energy today," I thought, and tried to come up with all the excuses I could reasonably cite without sounding too lazy. But another thought came in loud and clear - "you know that no matter what the cost, it's worth it."
I got up. As we bowed for violin and said our usual greeting of "konnichiwa," I added a goal of "I will be patient," and she said "I will try." It wasn't a perfect lesson, but she tried the whole time, I resisted impatience, music was made and we invented a new game to play. When piano time was done, we went upstairs and painted our nails with glow-in-the-dark nail polish.
Now she's drawing pictures and doodling about on the piano for fun. And I'm taking a blogging break, mostly to remind myself that it's worth it. When it looks daunting from the front end, when the work is done - it feels wonderful.
4 comments:
Oh, I love this! Can I share??? (most likely to blogger, or facebook, or both. that was just an awesome post!)
*blushes* Of course!! Thanks for the compliment :)
Came in from MMB, and I loved this post.
I am a musician and music teacher also, and my kids all play their various instruments (but I don't teach them myself...kudos to you!) and it really is worth it. Even though practice especially can be pretty brutal sometimes.
I noticed that my eldest daughter really had a hard time practicing after school, so this year I moved her practice hour up to 6 am. It's been kind of awful for me to have to get her up that early, but I don't have to help her as much anymore, so I can kind of sleep while she practices and guide her a little bit if she needs it. Anyway, she is a major morning person and this change has been AMAZING for us! And now I only have to deal with two cranky practicers in the afternoon. :)
Wow Lara, you are a wondermom!! I remember practicing piano in the morning as a kid and even though it was a pain, it was SO nice to have to out of the way. I can't imagine waking up WG at 6am to do that though - I didn't get blessed with a morning child :) Thanks for coming by!!
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