Day Two

33 days 19 songs 5 languages
Thursdays are really not days that I have dedicated to practicing, instead they are the days I drive grandma back to her house after 2 days and 3 nights full of love for my daughter while I consentrate to the task at hand. You can imagine that after driving for 2 1/2 hours in a four hour period time is rather exhausting. However, I decided while GZ was taking her nap to use that time to transcribe all the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) on my music and make my life a little easier. So, while I was writing the IPA I decided to count the pages of Dissonance once more because they looked more than I had originally counted....yes I was right there are 12 pages, not nice. I was told that amounts to 200 hours of practice...I have at best 100 hours from now until the recital for all 22 songs! And that is why this is my theme song for the next two months
"...and whatever I put my heart and mind to, I will thrive in You Lord"

Day One

34 days 19 songs 5 languages
No I did not memorize three songs today but truth is that I know the Italian songs quite well, revision here and there is all that's needed. My Italian songs are by Bellini with whom I fell in love with while I was working on my history research paper. It really is no wonder that he is considered one of the composers that greatly influenced Verdi...my other favorite. However, the reason those songs tugged my heart was because of my experience when I first fell in love with my dear Stephen. Farfalletta is the song I open with which means Butterfly. My friend said that Stephen was like a butterfly going from flower to flower not ready to settle. It was true then he really just had friends but he never really got too close. My heart ached after that and the other two songs describe just that!
What I did work on today was L'Hiver a Cesse by Faure, I still I have about a page to learn and its exciting that this is my last French song to learn before I start the memorizing process. The second song that I worked on was Discord/Dissonance by Rachmaninoff and I am four pages into it. I have five pages left before I start the memorization...I have high hopes since I learned the first four in about 2 hours or so. It is by a miracle indeed "...and whatever i put my heart and mind to I will thrive in You Lord"
Now I'm getting ready for my voice lesson, I have high hopes for that too :o)

As some or many of you know I've been working on getting my Master of Music for...well the past 6 years!!!!!! When Gabriela Zoe was born I only had the Graduate recital left. After what it will end up being more than two years, on April 9th, I will finally jump over that one LAST hurdle and I'll be able to get my degree. In light of watching Julie and Julia I thought I'll blog about my experience and hopefully it will keep me accountable. The countdown is not to the recital date but to when everything needs to be ready. So without further ado let the countdown begin: 34 days 22 songs 6 languages
God my hope is in You
"...and whatever I put my heart and mind to, I will thrive in You Lord"

Disneyland Family Fun

On Tuesday we spent the whole day in Disneyland and around noon we were joined by our cousins, aunt, uncle, nieces and nephew. And in the the evening we were joined by papa and yaya. It was a great day...quite long for me because I did not get a decent nights sleep the night before. However, we lived to talk about it :o) Gabriela Zoe thoroughly enjoyed Disneyland and it is so fun to see her understanding more and more. When it was nap time she would not go to sleep, and Stephen and I kept telling her that we would still be in Dland when she woke up. Well eventually she was convinced and allowed herself to sleep for an hour. On of the highlights is that she got to shake Mary Poppins hand and take a picture with her. She was in AWE!!! I would say that she is her favorite 'princess' at the moment :o)

Boundaries

As I am writing this I can hear GZ playing in her room! I consider myself a babywise mom even though I do not follow everything to the T and maybe some other babywise moms would not think that I am :o) However, I understand the principle behind the method and as I understand it is : 'The parents makes the shots and not the baby/toddler/kid' I do have to keep going back and be reminded of some specific ways to make that applicable. Like I said I don't follow everything and I cannot be 'blamed' for having read the book cover to cover several times...but i have leafed through it multiple times for specific issues. I was reading the blog Chronicles of a Babywise Mom and I found a lot of similarities in the approach I took in potty training my daughter. For one thing I don't expect my 18 month old at the time to tell me when she needs to go to the bathroom I take her (learned that the hard way :o) every 30 min. then 45 etc and now she can go for longer periods of time without needing to use the restroom and almost always is able to ask before the issue is urgent to the NOW!
As I was reading through her blog I came to face with this reality, one thing that I have not been consistent with in the past is alone playtime. I have not been against it, but maybe I got a little lazy in training my daughter to be able to do that. After I read that blog I was thinking through the idea of alone playtime. The reason why it is important is to teach the child to be able to entertain herself. In parenthesis let me add that in my specific circumstance that is not a problem. GZ has always been able to occupy herself when I can't give her face to face time. This may be the reason why I did not push 'alone playtime' However, this last week I realized there is another even more important purpose and that is the teaching of boundaries. I thought about when she is a teenager and she wants to do something that I do not allow or I need her to do something, I believes it goes beyond the understanding of parent/child relationship to the built in frame of mind that the parent is the one that sets the boundaries of what is allowable and what is not and for how long etc. Yes if that boundary is set by the parent from the time the child is young the battle agains boundaries set in the future I believe will be at least more mild. And yes my daughter is about 11 years away from even beginning to be a teenager so I have a lot to learn still. However, this is what I believe is a glimpse of the future in light of what I am doing NOW as a parent. My part is to pray and seek God fervently, read/seek/ask for advice and the outcome is up to God.