Tuesday

Second day of spring! Can you tell?

Well alright. There isn't that much evidence of it yet. Farmette crocuses wont bloom until early April and the first daffodil wont open up until around my birthday (two thirds into the month). For now, I admire the green tips! They are everywhere!

Breakfast. With Ed and with Dance.

The rest of the morning is spent on finessing plans for spring break. They are complicated! And, too, Ed and I sneak in a brisk walk at noon, and I swing on the monkey bars, and Ed tries to swing as well, only he is too tall, and so he has a ready excuse to give up on that.

In the afternoon a very excited Snowdrop gets in the car after school, telling me that, of all things, there is a school-wide talent show in a few weeks and though it was too late to sign up, guess what, her teacher made an exception and so yes, she's in the program!

What's your talent? -- I ask, realizing that it sounds a bit like a put down and I surely do not intend that. The girl has many talents, but what might she want to display on a stage?

Violin of course! 

And again I rack my brain trying to remember if I'd ever heard her play and yes, I did, once, on her very first recital where she played the piece she has been working on for a long time because yes, it takes a while to move on when you're full of enthusiasm for your lesson, but do not have the time to practice. 

Still, she does love her instrument. And so what that it's a simple ditty! This is an elementary school talent show, grades K - 4. How many people are playing Mozart in that age range? Oh, yes, well Mozart himself, but he is no longer with us so I think we are safe.

Ballet today. Hair done. Next, the rest of it.

On the ride to dance class she spells out all the instruments she'd like to learn to play. Flute. Piano. Too, she'd like to sing. And clarinet, because her dad was a clarinetist. I remind her of the book we read about a girl who was overcommitted. Maybe I can wait on the flute, she speculated.

It's funny about kids -- their choices are based on a sense of satisfaction they get from doing a certain activity, no? And yet, much as I saw great leanings toward music in both my daughters, I'd never recognized this yearning to do real music in Snowdrop. This means nothing of course. I'm just the grandmother and we spend so much time on stories -- read, told, you name it -- that I can hardly be surprised that there isn't time for art or music or any of it, not while she is at the farmhouse anyway. But, a child's enthusiasm for learning and performing music can only be a good thing and so I'm sure I'll be in the audience along with her family, enjoying an April evening of... elementary school talent.

(Watching her dance through a one way viewing window that obviously isn't so "one way")

In the evening she has Girl Scouts, which, too, she loves. Really loves. Cookie sales went well because grandparents are avid supporters of the youthful entrepreneurial spirit. She is on a Brownie roll!

At home, I reheat a leftover frittata and mull over the way life takes us in so many unpredictable directions. And that's a good thing, don't you think?