Nursing and Allegro

On the SuzukiChat List a year or so ago someone posted about nursing a toddler who was predisposed to hum Suzuki's "Allegro" whilst nursing. A similar post had been made three or four years before. Having had a similar experience with both Sophie and Fiona, I commented that the group of moms who have nursed to the humming of "Allegro" by a nursling was a very special and exclusive club.

Now I'm the parent to a nursling who not only hums Allegro while nursing, but hums Faure, Debussy and Chopin piano pieces as well as Book 5 viola repertoire. But I wonder if I'm a member of the most exclusive club of all -- the club of moms who are nursing children who can play Allegro on their violins.

Fiona is now simultaneously working on playing D-string Twinkles (in preparation for Allegretto and Perpetual Motion in D), on clean finger-hops and string-crossings in "Song of the Wind", on a 4th-finger exercise, on nice staccato tone in the first phrase of "Perpetual Motion", on the phrases and up-bow starts in "O Come, Little Children", on saving bow on the half-notes in Long, Long Ago, and on the A-major arpeggio that opens "May Song." Along with flat bow-hair and a relaxed "banana thumb" in the left hand. Her appetite for picky detail work is insatiable -- tonight she chose to do thirteen repetitions of each of the five exercises we decided to do. While I've never seen anything like this, and have been forced to turn much of my teacher training on its ear to cope with Fiona, I'd hesitate to call her musically gifted ... because she works so hard (and with such easy-going pleasure) at what she does. Still, there's no doubt she's frighteningly unique, and has earned me a place in an exclusive club that doesn't even exist.

I keep waiting for the bubble to burst. So far it just keeps growing. I keep waiting for her interest in breastfeeding to wane. So far she's holding steady. Good heavens, what a child!