You know how I mentioned our busy schedule in previous posts?! Well, buckle up because we're starting our wild ride! This week was Jonas's big week. Monday night, the school hosted a parent engagement night. There was pizza, face painting, a magician show, and the book fair. I volunteered to help at the book fair while Jonas enjoyed everything else (minus the face painting). At one point, he even came to help us at the book fair. Jonas is always willing to help...and he enjoys feeling like he's a big kid.
Wednesday (April 26th) was the Pinewood Derby. Since January, Jonas has been participating in bi-monthly activities at the church. He loves it! Some activities are simple and some take a little more effort and planning. This was definitely the latter! Jonas and Jeff have been working on, not one, but four derby cars! I'm pretty sure Jeff was more invested in this than Jonas, but Jonas still helped. They wanted to have 4 cars so they could see which one was fastest. Jonas ultimately picked the silver car...and it was the winner! Yup, he won the whole derby! He was super excited. There was one point where he wasn't quite sure he would win because there were so many other good cars. I could see the disappointment in his face. Still, he chose to have a good attitude even when he wasn't sure he would win. Winning is nice. It's easy to handle the fun emotions from winning, but learning to deal with disappointment or frustration is hard. I know Jonas will have to deal with plenty of that as life goes on...it's just a natural part of this existence, but what I saw tonight gave me hope that those hard emotions of disappointment or frustration won't be a stumbling block for Jonas.
The fun continued! The next day, Thursday, April 27th, was Jonas's 2nd grade play! Speaking of handling disappointment, earlier in the month, the teachers held an audition to choose which students would be given the role of "host" in the play. Jonas practiced the audition piece for days; however, after the day of the audition, he came home disappointed and worried. He explained that only two kids are chosen from each class. He said that three kids from his class were called back to re-do their audition. He wasn't one of the three. He was certain that the two hosts would be chosen from those three. He cried. He was so disappointed. He really wanted to be host. I hugged him and simply let him experience those emotions. Emotions are natural and you should never be ashamed or embarrassed or feel guilty for experiencing them. Most often, they simply happen and are out of your control. However, I explained to him, that we get to be the gatekeepers of our heart and mind. We get to decide what we let stay and what we need to change or get rid of. He allowed his feelings to stay for a few minutes. He needed to let them out, then he chose to get rid of them. He chose to no longer sit in those hard feelings. He wiped away his tears then expressed hope that he could still get the part because it wouldn't be announced until the next day. His hope paid off! The next day there was quite a different boy bounding through our front door after school. He got the part of host!! (or at least one of them). For the next few weeks, we practiced his parts. He easily memorized them (and many of the other parts too) and he rocked his performance! He did so well. He spoke clearly and added a little personality too. He was so excited to finally show us what he had been working on. I still can't believe all the end-of-the-year activities are upon us.
Friday (April 28th) was one final end-of-the-year activity for him. That evening was his final Let's Play Music piano recital. For the past 6 years, Jonas and I have traversed the curriculum of Sound Beginnings and Let's Play Music. He has learned audiation (the ability to hear notes in your head then sing them on key), chords and their inversions, transposing, different scales and keys, rhythm, etc. etc. etc. It has been a wholistic program, not simply focusing on how to read music or play the keys on a piano. He has done so well and he enjoys it. For this final semester, he got to compose his own piano piece, Yin and Yang. Throughout the semester, we worked on brainstorming ideas and drafting the music. Tonight was the culmination of all his hard work and, again, he rocked it! His piece showed the difference of a minor chord in the bass clef for Yin and major chords in the high treble clef for Yang. During the piece, they kind of battled each other. The Yin was loud and Yang was soft until finally, in the end, they powerfully came together. Jonas didn't seem nervous at all. He played his piece so well. I have to admit I got a little choked up when I handed him his trophy. This is the end of an era. He will transition to more traditional piano lessons now. How is he growing up so fast?! After all the fun activities this week, we felt like we all deserved a little ice cream treat. What a week!
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