Poor Nathan

Nathan had a fun, inspiring week.....until I posted about it.  Then things went downhill.  He cut his finger chopping potatoes, scraped his foot that night...  But the worst was Friday at school when he was chasing a basketball up a couple of stairs in PE and slipped, hitting his mouth on the edge of a stair.  His two front teeth went through his lip.  The dentist said his teeth look OK and we will just wait for the lip to heal but there is extra pink around it thus morning so we are at the Instacare to make sure there is no infection.  Poor guy.  It looks so painful!  It's VERY swollen, especially if you see the side view.  If you look close you can see the two exit wounds from his big teeth.  Inside the lip is super bad!

But he's still smiling!

Other than that the week was fairly uneventful.  Our Subaru is dying.  We are going to donate it this week.  The engine is leaking oil into the antifreeze.  We are sad we won't have it anymore but so grateful we had it this long.  We prayed it would last through speech and it went way past that.  We feel blessed!  Eva is disappointed, however.  I can't blame her!  We will just get to share cars  :)

I had a cool experience with a student this week.  She is an early advanced student and encountered a hemiola in her music.  This is where there is a duple rhythm paired with a triplet rhythm.  In this case the right hand was playing eighth notes while the left hand was playing triplets.  It is very difficult to teach, learn, and play.  Generally, I will explain, demonstrate, play it with the student slowly, etc.  several times over the course of several weeks before the student can begin to show some independent success with the concept.  Most students have to go through this learning process every time it appears for two to three or more pieces before they are able to figure it out entirely on their own.  It's very challenging.  This week, however, we came to a hemiola and I explained it, demonstrated it a couple of times and then asked the student to try it.  She played it perfectly!  The first time!  I asked her to play it a couple more times because I was sure it was a fluke but it was perfect every time.  We continued the piece, encountering two more instances and she sight-read the rhythm correctly each time.  I'm still blown away!  It made my week!!  I'm always impressed with what kids can learn--they all have special talents and it's fun to see them find/develop them.  I'm lucky because I get to see it's with my own kids, kids at school, and piano students.  It's inspiring!!