Piano Lessons

I have said, in recent years, that the one thing I would do differently with my first nine kids, would be to spend less time on sports and more time on music study. Most of them took violin, piano or flute lessons and five or six had the opportunity to play with an orchestra but music was still very much an after thought. Sports Mattered - music practice happened when we could fit it in.
Since we own every size violin, I had expected to first start the kids in violin lessons but when I heard that a local teacher was doing group piano lessons for beginners , I called her. She is a homeschool mom who speaks a little Mandarin ! (that might not be unusual where you live but since there probably aren't more than 20 Mandarin speakers in our whole county, and most of them are busy working at restaurants, this is pretty amazing ) The introductions at the first lesson were so funny. The poor teacher met - the Chinese mother (Ric's mom, Chumsi) who speaks mostly Chinese with two children, one who looks Chinese(Ric's Chinese brother, Brandon), one blond Brandon's American sister, Rachel), neither of whom can speak a word of Chinese - and the American mom (me) with two children who cannot speak a word of English - and Ric, who thinks he belongs to both of us and who calls Andy, Dominic and Rosie his American brothers and sister. Confusing? Yes, but so much fun. The teacher is energetic and enthusiastic and we all love the lessons, even Nellie who gets to play outside in the woods with our teacher's daughter.