Anna's show of Talent

For Christmas, I bought Anna the TANGLED sheet music book. She began working on "When Will My Life Begin," which is a fast-paced song. It took some work to learn, but she was excited about playing it. And I was happy to finally see her excited about something piano-related. Then I heard about the upcoming Talent Show in May. I asked her if she wanted to play the piano in it. She quickly gave me that look of, "Are you kidding me?" Then I offered to buy her any Wii game that she wanted. She then said, "Yes!" She worked only on her piano piece during her 30 minutes of practice for a whole month.

The day arrived and I reminded her about her reward, stating that I would even order it from my phone the minute she finished playing her song in the Talent Show. I requested that she be early in the program and she was second. I went up to turn the pages for her. She got over halfway through the piece before making a couple of errors. At one point, she stopped playing and hung her head. I encouraged her to keep going and to finish the song. Then she started crying whilst playing the song. I felt completely helpless at that point. Here she was, playing the song - not evening looking at the music, I might add - and was crying. After she finished the song, she picked up her music and ran to the bathroom.

After talking with her for a few minutes, it became clear that she expected herself to play it perfectly and, if she didn't, then it was "so embarrassing." I told her that THE MOST important part is doing her best AND finishing the song no matter what, and she did that. I think that this experience was the single hardest thing that Anna has ever done in her life to this point. She is shy, by nature, and performing isn't something she would ever choose to do. I am so proud of my baby girl.

The above picture is of Anna who was on her way to her Spring Band Concert. It was at this concert that she discovered how fun playing percussion could be, and she's on board for playing in 7th grade. Hooray!