Work a day Work a day

Today was a productive day. I cleaned out the garage, swept, mopped and scrubbed the dirty concrete floor. Its cleaner but really doesn't *look* much better. Mopped the kitchen floor, swept and dusted the living room (wow it was bad) and continued in my de-cluttering efforts. I also dealt with having my mother AND my grandma here for a couple hours. I love them but damn the women in my family are hard headed.

We had a GREAT violin "session." tonight There has been an ongoing issue that I have struggled with that seemed to get corrected today. Will, of course, wants to actually PLAY the violin. But there are steps to be taken and its been overly stressed to me the importance of NOT allowing him to put the violin to his shoulder and actually play. All kinds of problems arise with this. Improper holding of the violin, improper holding of the bow. Incorrect stances. Once such habits are formed they are extremely detrimental and hard to break. MYLINEATION as I have been reading in Enki... Or those little peptide things as in What The Bleep Do You Know. It was all coming together to me how important it was not to let him do this (which I had been allowing, struggling with how to get him not to do it). See, I'm kind of slow going at things. All things it seems. But once it all clicks for me I really see the path to take and go with it. Tonight was like that and I got thru to Will about how we do not want that cool violin of his to learn the wrong way to sit on his shoulder or it will never learn to play beautiful music. I can't describe it. It just came together and we did our routine. I was determined to break the cycle, and really knew it to be true that we continue forth in correct Suzuki fashion...

Bow as we say HIPPOPATAMUS!
Stance - Sing "Feet together, zip, and step!"
MOMMY places violin on shoulder ("Its coming in for a landing!")
He holds it with his chin for a bit...

We listen to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Suzuki Violin 1) while bouncing on our excercise ball.

He plays the violin - like a cello, resting in on the floor. Not on his shoulder!

Bow hold:
I do this, he's not so into it but imitation is everything.
I hold my bow and sing:
UP like a rocket
DOWN like the rain
BACK AND FORTH like a choo choo train
ROUND AND ROUND like the great big sun
ROUND AND ROUND like a kettle drum
IN TO the station
Check your pinky, BUMP your thumb!

Last week we made a violin using foam core, tape, and cardboard. He worked the whole afternoon on it and really enjoyed doing it. He drew the strings on it, painted it and everything. Sometimes the boys turn it into a guitar and rock out. lol.

I made the promise to our violin teacher to simply make sure *I* place the violin on Will's shoulder four times each day. Well... we didn't do it over the weekend but today went so well I'm inspired to make sure to do it the rest of the week.

Other than that, the boys literally played outside all day. I love these kind of days.