Grace giving Jude piano lessons: I love it. Don't you love the photo where he's showing Grace how he can find the triplets with his eyes closed? Jude is really enjoying his lessons, and Grace is enjoying teaching him. Often, family shared teaching responsibilities don't work out well, I've discovered, for us and other families I know of, so I've tried to make this as professional as possible, paying Grace at the beginning of the month, picking the same time and day each week for the lesson, writing it on the calendar, getting Jude dressed into clothes I would actually feel comfortable leaving the house in (and actually he really likes to dress up and put on a bow tie or a suit coat), and having the living room clean for his lesson. All of this has seemed to have worked quite well, and both Grace and Jude take the lesson time very seriously.
I don't know how long Jude will continue with lessons with Grace, or whether Truman and Clementine will follow suit in a few years, but for now this is working really, really well for us. I'd like to see Grace doing more teaching over the years because she seems very gifted in that area. This initial teaching experience has been a very positive one for her, and she'd love to do more in the future.
As for Jude, he is doing so well and learning so much after just a handful of lessons. At first he seemed uncertain about learning to play piano, probably because of all the practicing he observes his siblings do and the occasional grumbling about it that he hears. But Grace made his first lesson so much fun that he quickly changed his mind about piano and has become a very enthusiastic learner. He has such a good time at it, that Truman, observing, and participating in a couple of activities at Jude's lesson, has begun asking when he can learn, too. In fact, Truman told me a couple of days ago that he wanted to be a piano teacher. Well, you may be jumping the gun there a little bit, buddy, but high praise for Grace!
Meanwhile, there is Clementine, who cannot resist walking by a piano with an open lid. Quickly she scurries up on the bench and begins the serious act of playing notes, occasionally turning pages of music so she can find the right one. It's next to impossible for me to help Jude practice without Clementine discovering us and straining to get up, so I usually have both Jude and Clementine on my lap while Jude finds A, F, D, G.
Often I wonder why I ended up having so many piano players in the house, and no other instruments being learned to vary it up a bit. But my husband is adamant that each child learn piano before foraying into another type of instrument, and I do agree with him there. After a couple of years of lessons, it seems a little silly to quit piano to learn a different instrument, thus the four, or rather, five piano players in the house. I suppose the older ones know enough about music now that in many ways picking up another instrument wouldn't be too much of a challenge. But, meanwhile, I love the piano music I hear all day. Love it. And adding Jude's piano playing into that mix is nothing but pure joy.
