Practice makes...pandemonium

This past weekend Ella (and I) attended the 40th Annual SAGWA Violin Festival at the recommendation of her teacher. She attended classes on Saturday and then performed in the concert on Sunday. She got to perform in the beautiful Strathmore Music Center and played with about 500 other violinists. It was kind of cool.

(You can see her better if you enlarge the pics--she's towards the front in the green dress.)

But the coolness was outweighed by how lllllllooooooonnnnnngggggg the concert was. I almost stood up in my seat and screamed at the top of my lungs in front of the thousand people in attendance:

STOP THE MADNESS. WHY ARE WE MAKING OUR CHILDREN SIT HERE FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS???

AND EXPECT THEM TO BE WELL-BEHAVED?

WE ARE TAKING THE FUN OUT OF MUSIC.

I couldn't even sit there well-behaved.

Thank goodness I brought books for me and Ella to read. I texted. I sneaked snacks. I took my shoes off. Ella kept puffing her chest out, and fake singing with the music, pretending to be an opera singer. And Ella kept poking Booker, the boy next to her (whose name we practiced saying many times last year, because Ella kept pronouncing it "Booger".) We left and returned to our seats in what I now realize was all the wrong places in the concert.

Our concert etiquette was so unrefined. You'd never know I was an Oberlin grad.

I did not care.

Thank goodness my daughter still wants to play the violin after that painful, Sunday afternoon.

However, Ella did great in both her classes and concert. She is progressing beautifully and I'm proud of how far she has come in just a year and a half.

But let me give you a glimpse into what our daily practices entail. Picture keeping a 6.5-year old on task throughout a 30-minute practice each day.

Now picture keeping her on task with a maniac 2.5 year old having meltdowns and running around:

Note: Nursing, wiggly infant was not pictured.

Some day Ella's playing will sound angelic and I will think it was all worth it.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.