Here is a guest post from Buppie (aka Grandma Sandy) about giving piano lessons to the girls.

I am the girls' "piano teacher."  I make house calls and so, generally arrive late in the afternoon on Tuesdays to be with the twins — after a half day of school and an active play date — probably at a time when everyone's sugar level is as its lowest.  Nonetheless, everyone is up "for a lesson" including the teacher.

What different learning styles each girl exhibits!  M has been practicing a lot (although there's no real demand to do so) and proudly shows off the checks in the balloons, demonstrating that she has played the piece at least 6 times. Not only that, but she has even GONE AHEAD and tried the next piece. Every time I ask her if she's tired and if she wants to stop, she always wants to play more. I fear she's not getting her money's worth of time (about 20-30 minutes) because I'm constantly hugging her and kissing her delicious cheeks. I know it's very unprofessional, but I can't help it.

A, on the other hand, likes to show me music she has composed.  Yesterday, she played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," adding her own staccatos and crossed over fingers.  When I ask her if there's anything thing she'd like to play from HER book, she asks for the last page. M overhears this request and chimes in that A hasn't learned any of the the preceding pages. That doesn't seem to matter to A, who simply wants to cut to the chase, that is, the finale.  Fortunately we get onto another topic which avoids the inevitable frustration of a piece that would have been mighty hard.  That discussion is about the lowest key on the keyboard, an A, which sounds more like thunder than a musical tone.  A thinks that it should be called G, not A.  (I guess she's partial to A's. Well, duh!) I say that everyone calls it A. I try to explain that if people changed A's to G's just because they wanted to, that her name would G _ _ _ _ A.  I'm not sure if this parallel is convincing….  Anyway, that lesson, too, is interrupted with lots of kisses.

One can't have a better Tuesday than mine at any price.

Buppie

And here are some photos Buppie has taken of her star pupils.