Social butterflies

My boys have had 4, yes four friends over to play in the last two days. See what a good mom I'm becoming? Yesterday afternoon after we finished our lessons and I normally would let them go upstairs and watch a movie (Friday after lessons officially begins the weekend when they can watch movies), we decided to call some friends instead. After 4 phone calls and no one picking up, I gave up. Then one of Joseph's friends, Kenny, just showed up! I guess his dad got the message and Kenny just wanted to come play right then, so he came over. Then three other friends called later in the evening and arranged to come over today. Lots of little boys! It was fun watching them all out there today (6 boys!) swimming and doing little-boy stuff. 6 little bare backs jumping into the pool. Then they played a game that had something to do with a lot of swords and light sabers and running around from the backyard, around the house, through the front door, and then back to the backyard. And no one lost an eye, so it was all good.

Ben introduced the boys to Risk last night. It took them all of about 5 minutes to get hooked. Ben has been playing an online version with his brother and a couple other people. The boys all wanted to play, too, but they had to have email addresses in order to register. So now all the boys have email addresses. They got good ones, too, courtesy of their unusual names, so none of this johndoe14832@gmail.com stuff. Should this be some momentous event? The acquiring of their very first email address? It's some sort of rite-of-passage at least. As a result, Mosey told me today, "Mom, I think maybe I'm going to need my own computer because maybe you'll be using your computer when I need to send an email." You know, those oh-so-urgent emails that 5 year olds frequently need to send. We'll see. :-)
Anyway, they've played a couple of games against each other so far. And so far only 2 episodes of boys breaking down in tears and stomping out of the house in a fury. I guess once per game isn't too bad...
It's interesting seeing how the 3 boys react so differently to adverse situations in games. Joseph either really loves the game, or really hates the game (depending on how he's doing). When he loves it, he really loves it and is hugely enthusiastic. But when things are not going his way... watch out. Brigham keeps himself pretty distant. He was winning a game this morning, pretty decisively, and I heard him talking to himself about it. He was basically killing everyone else in the game, but kept saying, "But I'll probably lose." He's a little like me, trying to expect the worst so it doesn't hurt so much when it happens. But it does take some of the joy and excitement out of things when things go right. But even he gets pretty invested in winning after a while. He had a run of bad luck this afternoon in another game and came stomping into the living room saying, "I NEVER have any good luck. I ALWAYS have bad luck!" Mosey is definitely the most easy going, pretty much having fun no matter if he's winning or losing. I think being the youngest and smallest and therefore not having any firm expectations of winning in anything has contributed to this attitude. I guess there are some benefits in being the youngest!

Mosey said another funny thing the other night. We've been having fun with Spots, our new leopard gecko. Geckos are nocturnal, so the boys and I look forward to putting his crickets into the cage just before bed and watching Spots go hunting. It's a little gruesome, but very interesting. Anyway, after watching Spots a couple nights ago, Mosey said to me, "I think I'm nocturnal, mom." I said, "Oh? Why do you think that?" "Well, because I have really good eyesight and nocturnal animals have really good eyesight." I think he's just trying to bulk up his arsenal of reasons why he doesn't need to go to bed when I tell him to. It ain't working, buddy!

Tonight just before beginning the bedtime routine, Joseph throws himself onto the couch, tears trickling down his cheeks. "What's the matter, honey?" I ask him. "You always wake me up at 5:00 in the morning!" he says. "Baby, I never wake you up at 5:00 in the morning. What are you talking about?" Then I figure it out. It's Saturday night, and church starts at 9:00, so I do have to wake them up earlier than normal. Sundays are the only days I actually have to wake them up at all, thank you homeschooling. And I guess that is traumatic enough to drive Joseph to tears just thinking about it the night before. I tried to convince him that if it is really so terrible being woken up for church, all he needs to do is to go to bed earlier on Saturday nights. My logic wasn't convincing. Poor boy, what a tough life he leads. Still, we'll all be happier when we're finally off the 9:00 AM schedule. We've had church at 9:00 AM for nearly 2 years now, which is just too long!
Anyway, speaking of getting up for 9:00 church, I better get to bed myself. Good night!