Noah's early music

I've started teaching Noah about the related major and minor keys. A few weeks ago, he didn't understand my explanation of the circle of fifths, but I can see he'll be ready for it in a few more days. I'm going to run out of music theory to teach him pretty soon. He's started singing little songs. His first one went, "If you take me away from my home, I'll be very very sad. Please don't take me away from home."

A couple of days ago, I took him to a concert by a bluegrass trio at the library. At the end of one of the songs, he said to me, "That was in the key of G." I knew this was right because I had heard one of the musicians calling out the key to another at the beginning. Noah observed that he can tell the key of a song by listening to the last note, because that's the Do. I found that to be pretty astonishing.

I checked the tuning of Noah's keyboard against Yoni's piano over the phone. It's a half step sharp, which doesn't matter to anyone without absolute pitch. Noah heard Julia say she was going to play a C. Then I played a B on the keyboard to match the pitch, and Noah said, "Mommy, that's a B. You played a B. MOMMY, THAT'S A B!" I distracted him, but later, all of us went to Sam Ash to look at digital pianos. Noah started playing one and immediately told David that it was off from his keyboard and that a B on the piano was a C on his keyboard. David told him he'd have to relearn the names of the notes when we got our new piano. Poor Noah.

We watched parts of the Wizard of Oz today. Noah resisted at first, because he knows there are scary parts in it, but I promised to sit with him and only show him the non-scary parts. I can let Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music run, but God forbid Noah see the Wicked Witch or, even worse, those horrible monkeys. He (and therefore all of us) won't sleep for days.

Noah transposing; Evan really wants to crawl

In February, I bought Noah a $15 keyboard as a reward for "finishing" potty training. He has played that keyboard every day since getting it, and can now pick out songs and transpose them into any key (major keys only, so far). His ear is getting so good. Today, I was singing something, and he asked, "Mommy, why are you singing in C#?" I checked on the keyboard, and it was either C# or C. Later, when we were having lunch, my fork tapped against my bowl, and he said, "That's a C." And it was.

He's also starting to read. I bought him some easy readers about the planets and solar system, and he could read all of the planet-related words (learned from the Planet 10 website and other reading with us) right away. Today was our second pass through the books, and he can read them pretty well now. Tomorrow, he'll be exactly three and a half years old.

His precociousness is fun for me, because he learns as fast as I can teach, but it's also unsettling. I just want him to have a happy, fun childhood, and I think that getting labeled as gifted is not the way to go about that. I want him to see himself and be seen as normal, for as long as possible in his development. So when he does something amazing, I try to be supportive and enthusiastic, but not overwhelmed (though it's hard sometimes). I'm putting a lot of thought into how to help him develop, with the hope of ending up with a happy, stable, successful man. If he's super smart, that's icing on the cake.

It's worth noting that socially he is not advanced. Au contraire. At school this week, he was reprimanded for hitting his friend Matthew, many times. I told him not to do it anymore. The next day, I asked if there was any hitting, and he said, "No. No hitting. Well, a tiny bit of hitting." (He still says, "I hitted.") More on Noah's social contrariness later.

Evan is a much more active baby than I remember Noah being at his age. He can get on all fours pretty well, as of today. When he does, he rocks back and forth, like he's trying really hard for a big launch. I marvel at the imperative to push the boundaries of his physical abilities that he clearly feels. When he's on the verge of mastering a new skill, he practices relentlessly until he gets there. If he had an adult brain, he'd probably just keep lying there. It's not so bad, lying around all day. He is still such a happy baby - so smiley. And his goofy laugh is the most beautiful sound. He is still spitting. And now that he's eating food, it's even less appealing than before. Green bean spit-up is really gross. It's completely unfair that he should start crawling before he stops spitting. I wonder if I can find a bucket to hang around his neck. Much more than I remember with Noah as a baby, I have the sense with Evan that he is fully fledged human being. Every day with him is precious because he is growing so fast.