No, I have not finally ‘gone and done it’.  The children are all fine.  However, the two who were NOT taking a string instrument are now… ’strung’ as well.  Precious and Cricket, the two middle girls, took up violin lessons last January.  First recital completed earlier this month, the other two girls  have decided to take the plunge as well, except these two are taking viola lessons.  One instrument loaned to us by the teacher, another purchased and winging it’s way to the house, and music lessons for four on multiple instruments have given me renewed appreciation for all my parents did for me in my own musical career of sorts.  The instruments, the lessons, cost so much money, and take up time as well.  I am so grateful that they invested in me musically.  Music has been such a rich and important part of my life… even now when practice is all too rare, the ability and knowledge is there… a blessing which may lie dormant for a time, but is capable of blossoming once again to provide joy and pleasure in due season.  I pray that my children will be similarly blessed… that they will come to know the beauty and joy of music as I did… In the meantime, I listen with great pleasure to the attempts of neophyte musicians and if I close my eyes, I fancy I hear otherwordly accompaniment faintly in the background. Music lessons are not unlike parenting… we teach, seeing and hearing not that which is before us- unpolished and raw- but seeing and hearing instead the possibilites of what gem might be hiding therein, and trying to help THEM see it as well…