The Piano Recital

Justice had his first piano recital since he started lessons around nine months ago.  

It was a disaster.  

He couldn't get through one of his songs and had to start over five or six times before he finally hobbled his way through it.  Nerves?  I don't know.  He was so upset, he started to cry after he finally got done with the song.   He did go back up towards the end of the program and played the song again and did very well the second time around.  He also nailed his second song and it was beautiful.  He does play the piano well, I don't know what happened.  Well, yes I do.  He never messes up, he is used to excelling at anything he tries.  He hit a wrong note and panicked.  He was probably thinking "I can't believe I hit the wrong note" and then it snowballed from there.  Once he hit the wrong note twice he just lost all concentration and panicked.  Now let me say that EVERYBODY hit a wrong note.  Kids learning to play the piano hit wrong notes.  It happens.  But Justice doesn't think that's OK, and that is a problem.  You can't win them all.  

This is probably not something most Mom's would say, but it's OK for your kids to stumble.  Justice never stumbles, and that's really not a good thing.  This was a perfect environment for him to mess something up.  He was surrounded by loving people from church, and he got two dozen hugs and some serious love from the folks at the recital.  He went from feeling horrible to feeling loved in matter of minutes.  He soaked all that love up too, like a little sponge.  He was feeling like a million bucks by the time we left to come home.  

He's a pretty snazzy dresser.  I like that I don't have to make him dress up, and I like that he has the sense to pair jeans and Converse with a blazer.  

I'm sure his next recital will be fine, and he was able to learn a lesson from this one.  A little humility and a whole bunch of unconditional love can take a boy a long, long way.