The Return…

... to our regular lives.

Ordinarily, our Christmas vacation lasts right up to a Monday.  However, we resumed normal (or what we call “normal”) activities, today, with Ian’s music class.

I had a really strange, brief moment in which I felt like my mom.  This happened as we were pulling out of the driveway without enough time to scrape the ice off the windshield.  It may seem odd that some of my best childhood memories of my mom are in the car, because she really never drives over 25 mph, and it took us forever to get anywhere.  But I laughed at myself, and thought of my mom, looking through the little space that the windshield wipers had created, as I drove down Broadway…

As it turns out, we were early and there wasn’t anywhere to park, anyway, so I probably should have just taken the time to scrape the windshield!

Undoubtedly, the quote of the day was from Miah, who only saw her friend Owen's monster hat and did not see his face when we entered the studio.  Apparently she thought he was a real monster, because as he walked out the door with his mom she exclaimed, "That was close!"

At any rate, I thought I’d get some pictures of Ian at music class for today’s post.  Although I did get a couple, I mostly got shots of Miah waiting for class to be over:

Miah loves her friend Rocket.  He always brings snacks!

She wasn't so sure about his crashing tower, today, though:

Trying to unlock the studio door with my keys...

It never gets old:

 Of course, Miah loves the last 15 minutes of Ian's class

when she gets to come in 

and either pretends to be a big kid or runs around the room screaming.  

Today was sort of a mix of both:

 And there he is... Making music for an ensemble!

I am really thankful for our music program in more ways than I can count.  But just to name a few:

• Almost every friend we have here, we met at music class.
• Grace is 11 years old and legitimately knows that she wants to be a piano teacher when she grows up.  Granted, that could change, but Grace strikes me as the kind of kid who will probably follow her dream all the way to fruition.
• It can be difficult to set aside special time for each child when you have five of them.  Baby and toddler music classes have allowed me to do just that.  (I am probably going to cry when Miah graduates to preschool music at the end of this school year)…
• Having had several kids go through the music classes, I have fond memories when the activities are repeated.  As an example, today we did a dance that I vividly remember attempting while pregnant with Miah.  I was much better at it this time around… I think…
• And last, but certainly not least, I have found an amazing mentor and friend in Nancy, my kids’ music teacher, and that is hard to come by.

We have the best… studio… ever…

L.