Eight is Great

Benny is eight. This happened on December 27, 2007. He's now been eight for less than a week, and still, changes are in the works.

Example: Yesterday morning he asked me for yogurt and a banana for breakfast. When I questioned his abandonment of his favorite waffles, he told me, "I am really only interested in healthy food, now that I'm eight."

Super.

Another example: Yesterday he learned about analogies and was toodling away at his workbook page, answering Paris is to France as London is to _____ and other questions of that nature, and he looked over at me kindly and said, "I'm a much more cheerful student, since I turned eight."

Glad to hear it.

Final example: I have been trying to get Benny to relax his hand when he vibratos on his violin, so that he doesn't just clamp and quake, which produces a lot of tension and no vibrato. On Monday when we got the violin out, Benny told me he had had a dream which told him how to play the violin better. I asked to hear about the dream, but he said, "I can't tell you. It's just too beautiful." So he started to play and MY GOODNESS. Suddenly he can do vibrato. And played the first movement of the Vivaldi nearly perfectly, with every note in tune, and used about 50% more bow on every note, and in general just sounded fantastic. Yesterday was the same.

I wish I would have that dream!

A new year is here. I don't have an organized list of resolutions like I did last year. But I have a plan in mind. Oh yes I do.