Good work, big A

Today we had the keyboard concert at school for all the Year 1s and 2s who have been having lessons this year. Aidan learns in a group with two other boys from his class.

Aidan was off school sick yesterday and wasn't too good this morning either. I rang the music teacher this morning to check that he wasn't playing a duet or anything involving other kids (he wasn't), and I said I would try to bring him down to play if he was feeling a bit better after lunch.

Fifteen minutes before the concert was due to start, when I asked him to get dressed and got out his school uniform for him, he was lying on his bed moaning about how he couldn't possibly move or get up. He can be a bit over the top when he's sick, there's lots of lying around curled up in a ball rocking and carrying on about how he can't do anything. I gave him some more Panadol. Nothing changed. So I assumed we weren't going and started on other jobs I had to do.

Ten minutes later he walked out of the bedroom fully dressed in school uniform (including shoes and socks) and said "Are we going now?"

So I dropped everything, packed the two kids into the car and race down to the school, arriving about twenty minutes into the performances. He'd missed his turn but his teacher called him at the very end and he got up and played his piece perfectly. He did "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" Not a song I'm that keen to hear again but he did very well and he was one of the only ones who did chords with his left hand.

Sometimes your kids surprise you. In a good way. I was glad I encouraged him (perhaps it was a little stronger than encouragement actually) to do it.