When cello started again after the Christmas break, we reviewed my Christmas recital performance (which confirmed that yes, I’d been pretty darn good, better than all of us expected considering where I was at my piano rehearsal the week before performance, frankly), and my teacher and I decided to work on my bow hand and arm. So we began Chanson Triste, the last piece in Book 4, and I’ve been really enjoying that for the past three months. It’s done me a lot of good. It sounds beautiful, I’ve been able to focus on what my bow hand is doing, and jumping from the first to the final piece in the book has done wonders for my self-esteem. We’ll go back, of course, but this was something positive I could cling to these past few months, and I really needed that.

Orchestra, on the other hand, has been suffering really badly. I have had zero time to practice at home (something I admitted to my teacher, who understood—she was probably not happy about it, but she understood) and it’s really reflected in how behind I am in the orchestra music. We have a concert in two and a half weeks, and I have lost three months of practice time. I am so thankful to be sitting at the back of my section.

This seems a decent place to say: Hey, locals! Spring concert on April 13! Valois United, 7:30pm! Beethoven 2nd symphony, an Elgar string serenade, Grant’s Sinfonietta (yes, that would be our conductor), an Albinoni oboe concerto (soloist: our conductor!), and a couple of other smallish things.

The boy has been working diligently on his cello, however. He is just about there when it comes to reading music, something we have been working very hard on, and something he has been very frustrated with. He is playing a couple of really fun group things in the upcoming recital, has pretty much learned an impressive arrangement of the Angry Birds theme by heart since January (his teacher was hoping he would play it as his recital piece, I think, but he insists on playing Song of the Wind, with me accompanying him), and is zooming through his pitch and rhythm book. When he is frustrated, he tells me how much he hates cello and how he wishes he’d never chosen to play it, but when it’s going well he is very cheerful and says how much he loves it.

Speaking of going well, he finished up his second school term halfway through February. Two weeks ago, he brought home his second term report card. He got 40 in French communication last term. (That was the number grade his teacher told us not to worry about, as it reflected his English stream background.) He has a 91 in it this term, and 92 in producing oral and written French.

He more than doubled his grade. We were completely blown away. I cried, I was so proud of him. “Mama,” he said, “is my report card good enough for you to buy the Hoth level in Angry Birds Star Wars, like we talked about?” “Good grief, yes,” I said, scrubbing at my eyes. “Go get me the iPad and I will do it right now.” And then I took him and his sister to McDonalds for lunch as a surprise the next day, too. (Or rather, we went through the drive-through, since Owlet was fussy. Still, as we go to McDonalds maybe once a year, on the drive to or home from his grandparents, this was a Big Thing.)

In general, every single grade went up a percentage point or two, except gym, again. He’s a bit of a klutz, yes, but he has fun, and that’s what’s important. And we are so very, very proud of how hard he has worked, and continues to work.