Apparently, now that I’ve made yoga my job, I need a new hobby. Last week, Maya and I treked out to the suburbs in rush hour traffic (OMG, people do this daily?) and came back with these.
Maya has been asking to play the violin for well over a year and we’ve been putting her off. I looked into it last fall, but was overwhelmed enough with her starting full-day school, ballet, and gymnastics while I attempted to turn teaching yoga into a living.
For ballet and gymnastics, parents simply sign up and then
cajole drag take our child to once-a-week lessons where we sit around with other parents and/or a book/laptop for 45 minutes and bask in the glow of an excited gymnast/ballerina afterward.
Preschooler instrumental music lessons on the other hand, at least Suzuki method style, are a high-parent-commitment endeavor. Parents don’t have to play, but they do have to attend lessons, take notes, and guide daily practice. I’ve opted to join in with an instrument because I played as a child and I’m gambling that practice is less of a battle if I’m holding an instrument too, plus (as Mac pointed out), I’ve been looking for an excuse for years to pick up violin again.
I did pick it up yesterday and while my technique is certainly very rusty, I discovered that some of my decades-old Suzuki repertoire is still there as I played Lightly Row from memory. That’s a good thing because we’re spending the equivalent of a significant car repair to refurbish my grandfather’s violin (the one in the photo is a loaner), so I’m pretty much committing to two years of lessons for me no matter what Maya does.