A Little Piece of our Lives

 I saw this the other day and it made me chuckle. Here in our little town we have an excellent band teacher. He teaches band at two schools, the middle and high school so they keep him busy going back and forth. He still manages to help kids to love band and they do very well when they compete with other schools.

I was very happy this fall when it was decided that my youngest son would be able to join band because if you don't know this kid has a fascination with marching bands. He loves a good marching band the way I love a good steak dinner. We have watched hundreds of hours of marching bands on YouTube since he was just a little tyke. So the fact that he got to be in band made him a very happy boy. We chose the euphonium for one basic reason, we didn't know if he would have the capability to play and the school had one he could use for free. Yeah, I didn't know what a euphonium was either, I had to look it up.

Last night the middle school had their band concert and my boy got to play. Here is a poor picture of him (lighting was not great) playing his horn. He did so well my heart just about exploded! And then I bawled. Because here was my son, the boy that the dr's said would never develop and should be put in an institution to make life easier for us, sitting in the back row with his classmates playing his horn like every other "normal" kid! Yes, okay, he will never be like the other kids, and really we're okay with that because he is a very special boy who loves babies and kittens and is one of the most honest people you will ever meet.

After the concert we got to watch videos of the concert that other parents had posted on Facebook. I told Alex that I was very proud of him because he played every song and paid attention. He looked at me and said, " I made a few mistakes Mom." I quickly reassured him that everyone made mistakes and that's okay.

At the beginning of the year I told Alex that if he stuck with band for the whole year and learned to play that I would buy him his own instrument. Honestly, I thought he would have gotten tired of it by now and be wanting to quit. But no, not him. He has been looking online at trombones. When I look at his history on his Kindle I see that he's been watching lots of videos on how to play the trombone. Who knows what the future will bring for this young man? I really can't even guess but for now we're just going to enjoy the journey. :)