Ethan's Silver Sax

Monday night after Corey was praising Eth's saxophone playing, he told Ethan "Well, you keep this up and my hands are going to be tied - I won't have a choice but to buy you your own saxophone."  They were looking at a Cannonball brochure with all their cool saxophones, Corey likes that company cause they're local and BYU grads, and Ethan fell in love with the silver saxophone. 

Well, a little voice in my head told me to go look at the ksl classifieds.  So I did.  Lo and behold, right there at the top of the "saxophone" search was a silver alto saxophone for a great price.  Hmm...maybe it's cause it's a piece of junk, but let's check it out.  The next day we got a hold of the guy selling it.  Corey went down to Provo today and played it, turns out it's a great horn, so he bought it. Corey called me on the phone sounding a little guilty - "Is it okay for us to get such a great deal on a saxophone?  I mean this is perfect!  This is a great horn!  This is Ethan's saxophone..."  I mean, we'd already gotten Ethan to promise that if we got him a silver saxophone it would count for his birthday present for the next 3 years! So we're getting an excellent deal as his parents too!

Corey came home, he was so excited, he said "Can I give it to him tonight?"  I said let's try to wait - come on, Eth's birthday isn't til March.  Corey said he won't be able to sleep tonight if he doesn't, plus he's loose work hours tomorrow in the music store fussing over it, buying polish for it and looking at cases and neck pieces.  Best to just pass this on for now, so he brought it in.  Ethan was in the kitchen asking me about something, I just pointed over to his father and said "Go over there" with a smile, Ethan went over, saw the sax, Corey started playing it, Ethan stared in disbelief.  Then he started to protest in shock: "What?  WHAT?!?!?  I wasn't ready!!!"

I guess we hadn't let him ask and harass us enough yet?  Poor kid, he got what he wanted too quickly.  We've been teasing each other the past few days - "You know Eth, I heard that when a Mom sees her son share legos with his little brothers, that it makes them really really want to buy their son a silver saxophone."  When Ethan got home from school, he had Wesley come and get me "Ethan wants you"  I go in.  Ethan then addresses Wes and says "What did you want Wes?"  Wes replies shyly: "To play with your Helm's Deep?"  Then turning and looking at me with me with a knowing smile, he says "OF COURSE you can play with my legos!"  Then continues looking at me with his smile that said "You're going to get me a saxophone, right?"  I said "You share your legos?!?  I love it!  Get that boy anything he wants!"  Monday Corey also had told Ethan "Maybe we'll get you one in August after you audition and if you make the advanced band and need one..."

But tonight, Corey said with a smile "Well, an angel miraculously provided this saxophone and told us to give it to you."  Ethan still speechless.

Corey continues: "I guess God knew that you really meant it.  I mean, when you set goals and write them down and keep them, miracles happen."  Ethan continued to stare and gasp and sigh.  When Corey finally stopped playing and gave it to him, he just kinda held it and looked at it in awe, then he said "This is gonna turn me into Gollum!"  Which made me laugh - it is Ethan's precious.

They are in there having a jam session right now.  I love it.  Corey came in to me and said "They're getting really good!  I'm jealous.  I wish I'd had someone there to help me!"  He thinks there's no point in playing boring books, they just kill the fun of it and the kids lose interest.  Better to show them the cool and hard stuff and help them figure that out. 

Lily has joined them, she's doing the interpretive dance as she rocks on Corey's chair.

(Love that little grin.)