"Our Budding Musician"...

I guess because I am a musician, my father is a musician, my mother is a musician, my sister is a musician (though she won't admit it), and several other of my family members are musicians - I am alittle more "in tune" (no pun intended there, seriously) to Elijah Brooks' developing musical skills.  He is already exhibiting signs of good rhythm and being able to mimic a certain pitch I sing.  I sing and play the piano alot at the house, so he is always hearing music. At Kindermusik last week, his teacher Mrs. Lisa (he calls her, "E"), brought her flute to do a demonstration for the children. The other 6 children in the class could have cared less about the flute. They were crawling around, paying attention to far more interesting things than a flute! Elijah Brooks on the other hand, was very interested in that silver, shiny instrument making new sounds. He stood about as close to Mrs. "E" as he could get and was very carefully inspecting each move she made with her fingers. I had to even move him back alittle bit because he was kind of invading her "personal space"! He seems to be particularly interested in the piano these days, and I don't mean he just sits up on the bench and bangs on the keyboard.  He recognizes high sounds and low sounds now and can point to the black keys and distinguish them from the white keys.  He recognizes that each note on the piano makes a different sound and is having such a good time exploring the sounds.  We sit together on the piano bench every day for a few minutes and he loves it.  He especially LOVES to hear his E-Daddy play, and will hardly let him play a note before he is begging to sit in his lap.  I have been particularly struck recently in how he actually plays the piano.  He is not banging on the keys, but rather he plays using 1 finger at a time.  It's really fascinating to watch him.  The other night, I sat him on the bench and just sat back to see what he would do (I SO wish I had had my video camera).  He started playing 1 finger at a time and was playing each note on the piano going up and down the scale, not skipping notes.  I started kind of freaking out - okay, really freaking out- and Jay came in there to see what in the world was wrong with me. He was also surprised to see what he had figured out on his own how to do and said he wouldn't have believed it had he not seen it with his own eyes.  Elijah Brooks obviously knew he was doing something pretty cool and that mommy was very pleased, and then he started doing it even more!  It's just so much fun to see the excitement in his eyes when he makes the sounds himself.  He is just as proud of himself as we are.  I love looking at these pictures of his fingers.  When he was born, the first thing I noticed about him were his LONG fingers. His hands are identical to mine, which are identical to my father's. 

I fully realize that not everyone cares about this as much as I do - but for all of you fellow musician friends out there, this one is for you! 

Got to write this stuff down and document it while I can still remember.