Our 18 yo high school senior is not the typical clean-cut homeschool boy. He wears a long ponytail and loves to listen to music by classic guitarists from eras gone by such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page (former lead guitarist for Led Zeppelin), Eric Johnson, etc. (And just in case you think I’m a *way cool mom-in-the-know*, I’ll tell you I had to do a google search just now to remember all those names.) He is a self-taught guitarist and spends hours trying to emulate his mentors. I used to stress when he’d wear his beloved t-shirts bearing the faces of one of those guys to church or a homeschool family gathering, but I finally decided I could be fighting bigger battles, so now I’m just thankful.

Anyway, on to my story. Today started out as a regular day. It was a good day with no bickering and we even had some nice thought-provoking conversation going among the four of us (me and three kids). It was a gorgeous day outside and we had the door and windows open letting in the marvelous weather. I was going about my normal routine when suddenly my son plugged his ipod into the cd player and said, "Mom, did you used to play this song on the piano?" (He knows I used to play classical music when I was young.) Well, I prepared myself to hear some guitar solo screaming out from the speakers and I already had my answer ready (No!), when lo and behold, to my utter surprise, I hear...get this...BEETHOVEN! He had downloaded BEETHOVEN onto his ipod and has been listening to piano and symphony music written by BEETHOVEN lately! I’m still stunned.

You have to understand - I pulled this boy out of public school when he was in 6th grade. He had a LOT of ps running through his veins for a long time. He was very resistant to anything remotely *schoolish* and a relaxed style of learning has been very beneficial for him over the past few years that we’ve been homeschooling. I am confident that he is learning much more than he would be if he had stayed in a ps environment.

At first, as a new homeschool mom, and even lately as a more veteran homeschool mom, I have tried, tried, tried to sneak in some classical music throughout our days at home. It has always been met with moans and groans from all three kids. (The other two are 15 and 9.) Since it was not incredibly high on my priority list of things to force, er, teach, I usually let it go after a concerto or two and all was well with life again.

I’m still in shock. I really can’t believe my son is listening to classical music - on purpose! All my badgering, er, teaching is beginning to pay off. It’s about time. He graduates in May.