This weekend I made one of my biggest mom fails I’ve had in a long time. My 7-year-old had his first piano recital scheduled at one of our local nursing homes. His piano teacher sent me the information about the recital including the location and time and I invited all of our family members to come. Turns out I sent everyone to the wrong location.
We all got to the nursing home all dressed up and my boy was so excited to play. We arrived 30 minutes early so that he could get warmed up and familiarize himself with the location. We were surprised to be the first ones there. We even beat the piano teacher there. The front desk lady seemed surprised and excited to hear about the recital and told us where to find the piano room.
As we waited for the piano teacher to get there I got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realized he was 15 minutes late. That’s when I decided to look at my messages and found out, you guessed it. We were at the wrong location. The other nursing home was 30 minutes away and the recital was starting in 15 minutes.
As our family members all started to arrive I began to panic. Should I rush to call everyone to get them to meet us at the other location? Or should we just wait for everyone to arrive and have an impromptu private piano recital?
The residents of the nursing home were started to gather and were so excited to have guests. They were loving talking to my son about his piano lessons. That’s when I had to break the news to my son that I messed up and I messed up BIG. He was really upset and teared up. The mom guilt was hitting me pretty hard as I begged him to cheer up and play for these sweet people who had gathered to hear him play.
My husband was such a good sport and an amazing support. He was clearly very irritated with me for making such a huge mistake (as he should have been). But he cheered our son up with a pep talk, gave him a fantastic introduction and encourage our little piano man to play.
Everyone was so encouraging and cheered him on. He was relieved to have his first recital done. After he played my husband got up there and played The Entertainer for everyone. One of the residents even got up there and played. My mother-in-law finished the recital by playing Amazing Grace.
With the support of everyone around us, we made lemonade out of the lemons. We surprised a nursing home with a piano recital and made their days with the visit of a charming 7-year-old. I still feel guilty for leading us to the wrong nursing home. But my mistake turned into a blessing for the residents we surprised.
