I’d like to take a snapshot of my four-year-old son right now, but I’ve decided against it. I don’t want to interrupt his reverie.
He is playing the piano. Not banging on it, but playing it. A note here, a note there, a little pattern, which he will repeat if he likes it. Even some simultaneous notes now and then to make a pleasant-sounding chord. His older sister’s piano book is on the music stand, and he is paging through it, looking at it as he thoughtfully presses keys.
The parent voice told me to get over there and show him a thing or two – “look, Silas, this is middle C! Can you play middle C?”
Then the artist voice in me said, “easy, sister, let him explore. Let him lose himself in the moment, let him float on the music he is making!”
Then the parent voice said, “oh yes, good thought. But I should at least get this on video.”
And the artist and the mother together decided, “Nope. No video. The camera would distract him. Let him be. Go type this out on your blog and let him be.”
And so he is alone in his reverie, which is probably the best way for him to start his friendship with the piano. I suppose that “reverie” shares a root with “reverence,” and that is how this moment feels.
Julia Bloom 
Sounds like you’re a great mom! 🙂
Well thanks! But you know, i only show you what i want you to see . . .
Still waiting for one of my kids to give a hoot about making music. A mom can hope, right?
When Armin was a wee one, not much more than a year old, I had him sitting on my lap at the piano. I would play a note when he wasn’t looking, and then he would tap around on the keyboard until he found the note I had played. We did it over and over, at least a dozen times, and I had one of those moments—like you say “reverent”—with images of raising a musically gifted child. But he never did it again.
It’s amazing to me how much of good parenting is just keeping my mouth shut and sitting on my hands. You did the right thing, momma.