Owned By a Four-Year-Old

I'd use the word pown, but to say that he only practically owned me would be a flat-out lie.
So I've been playing the flute for the past 3 and 1/2 years of my life and quite frankly I've gotten bored and recently grown to hate it's high-pitched sound. I was considering learning to play the violin, and I acquired my sister's old and surprisingly in tune fiddle (as they're called in the maritimes). I was pretty excited about this but then my mom broke the news to me that we can't afford violin lessons right now, so I decided to stick to the band-class instruments.
Also as long as I've played the flute I've loved the sound of the Bass clarinet, which is basically just a giant, five-foot long clarinet. I talked to my band teacher about it and he let me borrow an old school one. It hadn't been touched in so long that the case was completley covered in dust and I had to soak the reed in warm water for about half and hour just so it was playable.
After about four hours of frustrating, near-tear filled practice I managed to get out a B flat major scale. I was so proud of myself as the Bass Clarinet is a hard instrument to play, especially if you've become so accustomed to the small, hollow rod I now think of as the flute.
My nephew Cole (I mentioned him in my first post) has always been facinated with my flute. I've tried to teach him to play it on countless occasions before. He usually just ended up hummin the tune to "spider-man" (Which I play for him almost every time he comes over) into the hole in the head joint. So today when he asked if he could play the bass clarinet (I don't yet feel comfortable calling it MY bass clarinet as I'm not even paying the standard fee for it yet) I figured it'd end up basically the same as it always did with the flute.
I was sorely mistaken. I showed him how to tighten his bottom lip and to put his teeth on a certain part on the headjoint and to blow as hard as he could. You should have seen the look I'm sure was on my face as this four-year-old (with little difficulty) managed to play a G (open). At that point I was embarassed, proud, amazed and disappointed in myself and didn't know how excatly to react. Without a word I fingered the notes for a B flat major scale and the kid played the notes with little difficulty.
Now you probably don't understand how freakish that is. I, a 5 foot 9 inch tall teenage girl of decent health was panting after my first attempt to play G, but this four-year-old with the combined lung capacity of his piggy bank played it better than I did.
I should have a video up soon if I can figure out how that will prove this to you.

My only comfort taken from this incident was that instead of continueing to try hard and conquer the musical beast that the bass clarinet is (like I did) he still ended up humming "spider-man" into the headjoint.

So on a slightly different note, I've been getting slowly better with the bass clarinet. Before I was actually getting worse every time I played it, but somehow I managed to keep my cool most of the time. I'm pretty sure I know why I was (and still kind of am) having so much difficulty is that the reed I'm using is, first of all extremely old and in horrible shape, and secondly it's a #3. Beginners are supposed to start on a #2. I'm thinking I'm going to buy a #2.5 and see how that works. Hopefully I'll stop sucking so freaking bad.
My main concern is not catching up fast enough. Playing the scale we usually use to warm up is one thing, but I don't think I could last an entire band class without throwing the entire band off just yet. I'm thinking I'll come in as often as I need to after school to get help from my badn teacher. I fel a little awkward doing it, but he's always offering everybody extar help so he'd better not mind it. I guess I just feel weird going up to my teacher and asking him the next time he's free after school this week.
Another concern, although I'm sure this one is illogical is the other bass clarinet player in the band. He's always ben the only one and he's really quiet. Personally I'm more comfortable around shy people, I don't know why. I usually enjoy just listening to other people talk since I'm so horrible at starting conversations. I asked my friend (who used to play the trumbone as usually sat right next to him) if he was a nice guy and she just said that he was quite. I guess at least he won't be openly annoyed by me, but he seems like the type of guy who'd help me if I asked him.

There's this thing after school called wind ensemble which is basically an after-school band class. You get credits for it and everything, so I'm thinking I'll play the flute for that and the bass clarinet for Band. It's kind of weird that now that I'm not trapped by my flute I'm okay with it. I suppose it'll be nice to have a mixture of melody and bass in my life.
The main question here though is; Can I play two (3 if you count the piano) instruments actively at once without becoming a band nerd? You'll just have to keep track of my entries to find out.
Or I suppose you could ask me later...