Teaching piano, like most professions, has its good and bad sides. Frankly, it's unusual to get a student who absolutely loves it and also shows signs of talent. Last week I started a new student, a tiny little girl who won't start first grade until this August. She's petite with long blonde hair and big eyes that are so very expressive. That might be enough but this little one is something else!

I teach piano at the church and the kids there have gifted me with all sorts of shows of love. I have artwork, bead dolls, clay figures, and candles given to me by these sweet children. There's a shelf of sorts down by the pedals of the piano and I have collected all these lovelies there. When this sweet little new student came last week for her first introductory lesson she noticed the treasures right away. I told her that it was my "shrine"...probably not the best way to put it, but this little one remembered it. When she came in for her lesson today she had a half dozen sheets of notebook paper with penciled drawings she'd rendered of herself with me along with "I love Mrs. Bunny" (oh, that the rest of the world could love so quickly and easily!). The stick people had these big fat hands with long lines drawn for fingers. I said, "Look! You drew them perfectly with nice piano hands!" She was tickled when I held our hands up together and showed her how our fingers were long and perfect for playing piano. Then she asked if she could put the pictures down with the rest of the treasures in my shrine. Cute! Cute! Cute!

She's adorable and so quick to pick up on the lessons that it made the whole day sweet and precious!