I’ve been entertaining myself with a preliminary search for a grand piano. We are quite serious about adding a parlor grand to our home but we are not in a hurry. This means that I get to window shop. Lucky for me, I do enjoy that aspect of a significant purchase.

But it has also turned my thoughts to our existing piano. We have an upright that and an early point in my life was purchased brand new. My parents bought it for reasons that are not quite clear to me but fall under that “every house should have a piano” realm of thought.

Lucky for us they had those thoughts. I do not remember a moment of my life without a piano in the house. We always had the ability to sit down and plunk out a tune. There were lessons for some of us. But for the most part we simply enjoyed having the instrument in our home.

That is not the case with my children. Earlier this summer when the boys were practicing their newest pieces, I realized that they play. They PLAY the piano. With a small, budding passion for the music that can be made. They PLAY with a joy and love for the instrument itself. For the sounds and emotions that can be made. Granted in all honesty most of those emotions are kin to a dinosaur stomp and a herd of galloping rhinoceroses. But in the end they are playing as pianists.

Our old piano is now a well loved instrument. It occupies a place of honor in my house and is touched multiple times through out the day. Whenever the mood strikes them both boys can be found tickling out a tune. I have music in my day everyday. Music that is made my the small hands of my boys.

Is it no wonder that sometimes window shopping for a grand feels a bit like a betrayal to our current well loved piano?