Evening Practicing

YaYa is doing great with the oboe!  The past two weeks she started to play real tunes:  Old MacDonald and Yankee Doodle.  She was a bit apprehensive.  OK, she was a extremely apprehensive about playing songs because she was worried that they wouldn’t sound right and frustrated about having to move multiple fingers at the same time, but both songs sound great this week and she’s very prepared for her oboe lesson today.  She is taking lessons from a university oboe professor who “likes to have beginners because she can teach them good habits from the start.”  Every week she gets so much better, and Dr. Peds and I have concluded that beginning oboe does not sound nearly as spine-tingling as a lot of other beginning instruments.

YaYa doesn’t like to have anyone in the room with her while she practices.  She gets pretty testy, in fact, unless it’s Mr. TOF, who will actually sit very still for a very long time if she lets him listen.  He knows if he gets up and jumps around he will get kicked out of the room, so he sits attentively watching every movement her fingers make. He calls the oboe the “boeboe la la la.” There are so many wonderful reasons that I love his language and his special ability he has to worm his way into his biggest sister’s heart . I also love how he sits so still and absorbs everything while she’s practicing.  To persuade YaYa to let me take this picture of her actually playing the oboe I had to do some major bribery (offering to do some of her chores for her) but it was SO worth it.