Parent Party. . . the next generation

Flowers for the Parent Party

Princess Torte and Friends

I was needing pink, I guess.

Presents? For me? 

Alpha Cat

Bring on the Blizzard 

Fascinating 

The shower is the next best thing to the toilet. 

New group lesson curriculum. . . petting cats.

Mark's gonna have a FIT. Get down. . . 

Senior pictures outtakes

No stress here. 

Just a shot on my phone. 

Is that the best you can do? Playing with a metronome? Not very original, Oliver. 

Sparking the Art and Puzzle Cabinets. . or Mama reclaims her kitchen space. 

Sunday was my annual party appreciation party. I think it was the eighteenth.
It's funny how things change.

With the exception of Peter, all the studio kids are younger than Calvin and Mary.

We are officially way past early childhood. I wondered, where will I store all these precious Ravensburger puzzles? For the rest of my life? Calvin and Mary loved these puzzles and would go through puzzle phases where our whole downstairs would become a puzzle museum. Suddenly and in a single morning they let them all go, saving only 600 of the very best ones. The rest are going to studio families. The memory is enough.

When we moved here, and I got those 50 three to five-year-olds at MacPhail, I really got my early childhood chops together. And, I also got to watch fifty sets of parents in action. So many, many good parents. I idolized them. The mom of the three rough and tumble Irish boys--when the youngest got his fingers in the hinge of the big oak door to my studio, as the color drained from my face and even before the scream, she reached for a beanie baby and held it out to the child. He grasped it in his hand, bending all his fingers and she declared. . . nothing is broken, you are fine.

I idolized those parents. They knew what their priorities were. Their expectations of their children were very clear. Some were attachment parents, letting their kids sleep with them until they were eight, and some were promoting early independence. Most did not have a TV in their house, but they all seemed to have a plan. Some were home schooled and some were public schooled and some were private schooled. And here's a news flash. . . the kids all turned out just great. I can't think of one single piano kid who didn't turn out great. That should be comforting to us all.

Jackie and Grace and Stefanie and Cassy became teens and summer nannies and baby sitters for us. They changed diapers and carried the kids around like pets. Or dolls. They knew all the Kotrba secrets, like exactly how much cheese I kept in the fridge for some doomsday scenario where we couldn't get to a grocery store. Aidan shadowed Calvin at summer institutes when I had two kids to observe.

Now Mary is watching the kids during the party party. How do I know if he needs a diaper? You will know. They write her cards that say, "I love Mary."

It's all making me just a little tender today.
And now, although I did nothing to earn it, save living my life, I find myself as the older wiser parent. Maybe the newer parents see me as an example of what to do, or maybe what they don't want to do. It's all valuable. No matter who you idolize there will come a day when you say, I just couldn't do THAT. And you will find your own way.

That's really what the parent party is all about. Helping us find our way. Sharing the ups and downs of highly committed musical families.

Loving kids and loving music and always in that order.