Musical Quin

 Quin had his first violin recital yesterday. He started in September and is doing really well. I was reflecting on important moments in his musical journey and found some cute pictures and videos of musical Quin through the years.

We sang to him and I played the piano while I was pregnant with him, I guess his musical journey started at 4 months old, when I started taking piano lessons at age 21. I had the most amazing teacher. She would set up a pack n play for Quin with toys to play with while we had our lesson. I took lessons for about a year and played for primary (the children's ministry) at church. 

Quin and I watched a lot of YouTube videos together when I had terrible all-day sickness with baby Ammon and needed to lay on the couch most of the first trimester. We watched a lot of Muppets, but one of our favorite things to watch was the Piano Guys. At age 2 Quin was enamored by the cello player. He had a cheap souvenir ukulele from Hawaii (from my aunt). He would hold it like a cello and use whatever stick or lightsaber he could find to play along with the Piano Guys. He always referred to it as a violin and asked to take lessons for years. 

He mostly immitated Steven Sharp Nelson (the Piano Guys cello player) but occasionally he would pretend to be Jon Schmidt.

I started teaching him piano at age 3. He was too young and we were hit and miss with having a baby brother and then a baby sister. He was my guinea pig for teaching.

 I bought a preschool piano method book for him when he asked me to teach him like the student I had. We had only gone through a couple pages when he snatched the book off the piano, threw it in the recycling, and went over to the bookshelf and pulled out the yellow pre-reader piano method he had seen me use with my student. He liked the Faber method much better than the other one! 

I ended up making my own preschool piano music with color coded notes for Quin and my students.

He played at my first piano recital as a teacher at age 4. I arranged a little snippet of Beethoven's 5th Symphony for him and color coded the music and the keys. Sadly, the video is tiny and blurry, but I guess that makes it feel nostalgic. 

Quin was obsessed with Beethoven at age 4. We loved watching Fantasia 2000 together and listening to his symphonies in the car. His favorite, like so many other people, was Symphony #5. He called it "Beethoven Smith." 

One day he asked to hear "Beethoven 76." I told him, "Beethoven only wrote 9 symphonies and then he died." Quin insisted that Beethoven has written more than that. I asked if he thought Beethoven was writing more symphonies now in heaven. He replied "Yes. He's up to 654, that's how many he's up to now." 

Also when Quin was 4 years old I led a preschool music group called "Music Makers." I enlisted his help to make a recording of "the puppet song."

He likes to make up songs. Here he is pretending to play the organ. I started playing the organ at church when he was 3 years old. At the end of the meeting or while I was practicing at the church I sometimes let him try playing it gently. 

Improvising the background music from Minecraft. 

Composing a lullaby.

 

Age 7, playing the Star Wars theme at my "music from the movies" recital. He dressed in black to look like Luke from episode 6. I wore a beard and played "This is Me" from the Greatest Showman.

Age 8, playing a duet with me at my last recital in Oregon.

Age almost 9, playing Jingle Bells for his first violin recital.

I am very proud of him. I'm thrilled that he's enjoying it, learning quickly, and wants to continue. 

You don't need to hurt yourself trying to be enough

I've been feeling dangerously close to another mental breakdown lately. I've been in the emergency room 3 times for mental health crises. I'm starting to wonder if visit number 4 is creeping up on me. Layers of mental illness smother my brain and make it difficult for me to function. As a mother of an independent preschooler. As a parent of kids in public school. As a fun piano teacher and church music leader. As a normal adult. As an adequate partner in my marriage. 

Michael took care of Ruby in the middle of the night so I could sleep through the night. This morning I had the energy to do things normal humans do, get the boys off  to the bus stop on time, take care of  the dishes, get the laundry folded and start a new load, feed the cat and treat her for fleas and spray the areas she hangs out in (yes, that's part of the adventure right now). After my caregiving job I even had the energy to help Ruby ride her big girl bike when she asked me to (in the friggin frigid cold!). 

Being productive is usually how I measure the value of my day. It makes me feel good. But today I felt a tinge of sadness thinking that my awesome day was what a normal day should be for anyone else. That inevitably I would sink back into being exhausted, depressed, and curled up in my bed every possible moment. Because that's the real me. And no matter how much I want it, I'll never be able to function at a high enough level to have an actually successful life. I know some of the constant tiredness comes from depression. Some of it is from always being overwhelmed, and I'm easily overwhelmed. Some of it is from insomnia. And being stupid and staying up too late with Michael to keep from forgetting who my husband is or so I could feel like I have a fraction of a life outside of taking care of kids. Some of it is from thyroid issues we haven't been able to figure out a solution to. 

Anyway, the exhaustion that normally hits me before 10 am didn't come in waves over me until noon. I laid down and listened to Ruby play in the other room while I thought about the things I had listened to on the Come Follow Me podcast. I liked the way Dr. Jenet Erickson described the challenge of having a strong willed daughter as an opportunity for her to grow.  It made me think my mental illness(es) are probably an opportunity for my spirit to grow. I was thinking about the many shortcomings I've had in the past and how the atonement covers them and fills everything in. It made me think that the atonement is working for the things I fail at now. Not that I shouldn't try or make it my excuse. But I'm trying my best and I feel like I'm about to break. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes I wish I could die so I could just get a little rest. 

As I pondered all these things I felt the spirit whisper to me "you don't need to hurt yourself trying to be enough." I know God met me where I was with a message I desperately needed to hear. I felt His love and knew that His plan is for me and that it is working in my life. I wanted to share it with everyone I can. Life is all about relationships, it's not about tasks. Life is getting us ready for heaven, where it is all about relationships.

I thought about my priorities in life. Initially I put my relationship with my kids at the top, but then I remembered my relationship with God needs to come before that. I was so grateful that I had a few minutes to meditate and think and work on my relationship with him this afternoon.