I went to Ashley's piano recital last week, and she did great. She made one little tiny mistake, covered it up like a pro and kept on playing beautifully. I told her that was the mark of a true performer and that I was so proud of her.

Our cute little neighbor friend we brought to the recital is a perfectionist, and he was stressing in the car. He got up to perform, and he too played like a pro--until the middle when he  froze during a more difficult passage. He promptly stopped, stood up and announced he was going to start over. He did this exact same thing again, playing beautifully, freezing in the same spot, then standing up and announcing he was starting over.

His face was red, he was really uncomfortable and I'm sure there were a few held-back murmurs of annoyance. He finished the third time, and sat down. I went to go chat with him at intermission and tell him I was proud of him for hanging in there but he had already left.

The more I thought about that little recital, however, the more proud of him I became. I thought, Here is not the mark of a true performer. He broke most of the cardinal rules of performance. On the other hand, he played beautifully and finished the piano piece on his own terms, nobody else's. AND he did finish. Here is a little boy who is honest, will openly admit when he's made a mistake and will work hard right in front of you to correct it.

 Now I may not want him to play the piano for me (until I'm sure he completely knows the song well enough to complete it the first time through. He really played very well), but some day I may want him to build a home for me or perform a surgery for me. I'm fairly sure this boy will go on to study hard, continue to perfect whatever career he chooses and will definitely see the job through until the end. If he makes a mistake he will correct it, and he won't be afraid to keep going, no matter who's watching. I just thought this was a very good "piano" lesson.

Happy Mother's Day to all you cute moms out there.

 I just wanted to give a note to my moms. Some girls are lucky enough to be blessed with an angel mother, and I've got two!!

I love you, Mom!

Okay, the last entry I posted totally reminded me of this incident in college. This, by the way, is not a mom story. When I was a college freshman I was having lunch with this new acquaintance of mine named Mark. We had some sort of bio. lab together and lived in the same dorm area. SO, I'm sitting at this cafeteria table with Mark and a whole bunch of his other friends.

They're all shoveling in their food as quickly as possible because they all have class soon. I am the only one at the table who happens to be done for the day, so I'm fairly relaxed and eating casually until Mark happens to say something like, 'Wow, isn't Mindy a perfect eater? She's like a really dainty eater.' What?

Suddenly total strangers, staring. Probably wondering, Who is this Mindy? Does she really eat all that well? How dainty of an eater is she? Great, right? And next I feel something really wet and cold all down the front of my shirt. I had totally dumped my entire glass of water down the front of me--out of nerves from Mark's ridiculous observation and the resultant stares of the entire table. All this had happened in about five seconds. Nice. Funny now.

Anyway, that was my little sidetrack for the day.

Yesterday around lunch time my two year old Grace and I were in a bit of a headlock over something. We both tend to get really grouchy when we're unfed, and so I think the tension was running a little higher than normal. Anyway, I was trying to get Grace to do something, and she was refusing. I started to stare her down with my most menacing "you'd better do this right now, young lady, or so help me" Mom stare. Then for emphasis I planned to slowly pop the crouton I was eating into my mouth, crunch meaningfully and point at her. (Yes, I did say crouton. I really like eating croutons right now like they're chips or something else snacky--kinda weird, I know.) Anyway, the crouton missed my mouth, bounced off the countertop and fell to the floor where it left a trail of little crumbs.

Our annoyance was immediately dissolved. Grace and I started giggling and pointing. Grace couldn't get over it. She probably laughed for a full minute over the fallen crouton. We completely forgot what we were arguing about, and it was obviously so insignificant I still can't remember what it was. We ate lunch-which improved both our dispositions immensely--and moved on.

Today, Kourtney had a soccer game in Kaysville at 6:00 p.m. The 40 minute drive took 1:45 with the rush-hour traffic we thought we were just going to miss. Not only did we not get there 30 minutes early for warm-up and practice, but we got there 25 minutes into the game. The girls were just not playing up to speed today, and the other team was like super fast, skilled midgets to boot. So everybody was already kinda grouchy when we got there. We capped off our fashionably late entry with Kourt stopping a ball dead in the mouth and cutting her lip on her braces. Ouch. The smack was huge. Brave girl, barely even flinched, and she only came out because her coach called her out. That stopped my mental complaining short (you know--stupid game, why are we driving all the way up here, dumb annoying midget players, lame lame traffic, etc.).

So, here's to all the soccer moms out there who do it on time, without complaining and really have their children's best interests at heart. I am aspiring to become more like you (or maybe at the very least, to see if my kids can get a ride with you). jk--I really do love to see my kids play.