A Really Big Deal

Emma had her first piano recital on Sunday. She has been agonizing about it for weeks (months, really). Losing sleep at night over it. Not able to eat because of it. 

Most days, we'd have a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Emma, you need to go practice piano.

Emma: I don't want to. I hate piano.

Me: No you don't. You love piano. You just don't want to play in the recital.

Emma: I NEVER want to play piano again.

Me: Well, you need to. So go practice.

Emma: Fine. I'm gonna practice. But I'm very mad that you're making me play in the recital....

and on and on and on....

Because of her extreme distress and because her piano teacher is a saint, we gave her 3 choices:

1. you can play by yourself.

2. I can sit up there with you.

3. You can play a duet with your teacher.

This was a pretty big decision for her that she agonized over (I'm not exaggerating), but finally she decided that she'd play a duet with Ms. Jane.

Phew.

We tried to coerce encourage her as much as we could (neither of us is known for the gift of encouragement) :

"Emma, you're going to do SO well."

"As soon as it's over, we'll take you to go get a treat."

"Daddy loves listening to piano more than anything in the world. You're going to make him so happy."

"Emma, if you throw a fit and make a big deal about it, everyone is going to be watching you. If you play really quick, your turn will be over really quick and they'll start to pay attention to the next kid."

"Elijah is playing two songs and you're only going to play one, so it should be really easy."

Poor girl.

Anyway, all weekend long she complained about a stomach ache. And she couldn't sleep at night. And she'd be talking about her recital as soon as she woke up. She didn't even want to wear her fancy dress- just her plain ol' comfy one. As we drove to the recital we asked how she was feeling (she looked a bit green) and she said she was mad at us. Oh well.

When we got to the church, she wanted to sit by her cousin Elijah (not me or Dylan). And when it was her turn, she went up to the piano, made a last ditch effort to convince her teacher to play her part of the duet on the high notes (audience side of the piano), and when that didn't work, she did what any self-respecting six-year-old would do....

she played her song. beautifully.

Way to go Emma! We are SO proud!