Recent Violin Recitals

I read recently in, "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee", about an old philosophy that good parenting requires 1/3 love, 1/3 discipline, and 1/3 sitting on your hands.  As I like concrete ideas, I immediately applied this to violin practice time.  I like efficiencies, and am someone who will often take little things for-granted.  I will often not notice the efforts my children make.  Now, when I sit with them to practice violin, I spend about 10 minutes of time marveling at what the child has accomplished, and pay a sincere compliment, allowing time to show me new songs they've learned or new ideas they want to try.  I spend about 10 minutes of time trying to learn something new, or improve technique.  For the 10 minutes of sitting on my hands, I will leave the room, while they finish practicing.

In an effort to remind myself to not take for-granted, I make a conscious effort every morning and every night to hug and kiss each child, and comment on my gratefulness for their existence.

Madeline playing "Happy Farmer" .  

Ella playing "Minuet 2"

The Last October Hurrahs Brought....

... a lot of clarity.  Looking back on photos, I see that we spent a lot of time outdoors. Each outing was prefaced with, "This is the last nice day we'll have for six months".  With such realization, we off-loaded any other responsibilities and headed outdoors.  We could double justify the many outings because Ella's birthday is in October, and we celebrated her birthday many times.

We headed to our favorite near-by state park.   This time, we walked a long the river, enjoyed the beautiful fall color (which we reputed to be the best in 10 years due to the alignment of many factors), and finished off with a picnic and s'mores.  

After the s'mores, we headed for our last family bike-ride of the season.  Regrettably, we have no pictures, because they would tell the story much better than I could.  I told Ella she could earn three cinnamon bears if she would ride Madeline's bike about 1/4 of a mile on a flat wide trail.  She grudgingly agreed, and started out fine, slow, but fine.  Then she realized what she was doing, and she turned her knees in, and she started wobbling a little.  She averted disaster by driving off the trail and crashing in the ditch, something I remember doing myself as a child. 

She was furious with everyone, insisting she would never ride a two wheel bike again. She would would stay on the tag along indefinitely.  A picture flashed through my mind of Ella leaving for college, not knowing  how to ride a two wheel bike, still peddling a long behind my bike on the tag along, and I wondered whether I had a greater responsibility to recognize her right to choose for herself, or to persist that she continue to practice riding a two wheel bike so that she could learn that she could do hard things, things which she thought might be impossible.

At one point, Max really wanted a turn on the tag along, so Ella rode his little 3 year old bike.  She was further humiliated by this, and by the time we got back to the car, she was barely saying a pleasant word to anyone.  I think we'll try again next year with her to ride a two wheel bike.  

October is also the month that reminds me the most of living in Croatia and Slovenia.  The colder weather, the harvesting of the last fruits and vegetables meant that the women started to cook.  Our last meal from our garden was a cherry apricot mint lassi, along with roasted swiss chard, and a roasted eggplant, red pepper sandwich with fresh mozzarella.  It was memorably delicious.