I’m two or three months into violin lessons with John.

“We” practice six days a week, with Fridays off. Since the Suzuki method actually calls for the close participation of a parent, I feel like it’s fair to say “we” when it comes to these lessons, and not in that obnoxious “we have a loose tooth!” way of speaking that parents sometimes have. I hope so anyway.

There are good days and bad days. Sometimes practice lasts for a painful five minutes and includes whining (from John), screeching sounds (from the violin), and the sound of loudly rolling eyeballs (from me). Other times practice lasts for about 30 minutes and is actually fun. For both of us. I can find no way of predicting or controlling what kind of day we’re going to have. Fortunately the good days outnumber the bad.

Even though he’s just Twinkle, Twinkle Little Starring at this point, I think it’s absolutely amazing. I’m watching John learn a language that people all over the world speak. Incredible! I try to play it cool about this in front of him, though. If he suspects how much I really like him doing it, he may just stop.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but when it comes to music, I find myself doing what I think most dads and many moms do with sports: projecting too many years and skill levels ahead. I don’t have any fantasies about John playing college basketball. But I can’t help thinking how great it would be for him to play an instrument long enough to really play it. We’ll take it one Twinkle at a time, of course. But a girl can dream – or in this case, can’t help the dreaming.