Memorable Music

It's been an exhausting couple of weeks with Ian away doing Army things, but he should be home tonight.  (And then I will hug him and kiss him and smile and then run away to where nobody wants anything from me for an hour or more).

For the most part it's all been pretty good.  I like being in charge of the house and spending so much time with my kids and picking them up from school, etc.  This past week we also have had two extra kids sleeping over to help out a friend in the National Guard who had her own assignment out of town.

I've learned that five kids is more than three kids.  It's like leading around a field trip all the time.  And the amount of food five kids consume is impressive.  I'm feeling stretched pretty thin between all the responsibilities at work and with the dog plus managing five kids' worth of meals and activities and homework and just general mood control.  I mentioned Ian's coming home, right?  I've paced myself well, but wonder again how I did single parenting alone for a couple of years.  Even when everything goes without a hitch it's not easy.

Despite the busy schedule, though, I got to squeeze in something wonderful.  I found out right after Ian left that Itzhak Perlman was going to do a single performance with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.  My memories of Itzhak Perlman go back to Sesame Street.  I have heard him play on television and in recordings numerous times, but never live, and he was going to be performing the glorious Beethoven Violin Concerto in D.  In the first half of the program the orchestra was going to be playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  If there was ever a perfect concert to take a young violinist to, this was it, and all I could think was how wonderful it would be to go with Aden.  She's eleven, and is somewhere in the middle of Suzuki Violin Book 2.  I couldn't think of anyone else in the world better to go with.