Lazy or overbearing?

Things have been going pretty normally here the last few days. Busy with school. Trying to figure out how to keep my kids on track without becoming an overbearing mother. I worry about this. I know I have some controlling tendencies. But then I also know I have some lazy tendencies. I used to have a lot of insecurity about being a lazy mother. I let my kids watch too many cartoons (I found it way easier just to get rid of the TV altogether than disciplining myself to discipline my boys' watching...). But now I'm worried about being overbearing. Do I require my boys to do their schoolwork *just so?* How can I teach them to pay attention to detail, to take pride in work well done, without being too controlling and demanding? So I don't want to be a lazy mother, but also not an overbearing mother. Where's the balance?
I'm worried about piano practicing with Joseph. He sometimes resists me being right there telling him what to do, but on the other hand he doesn't really know "how" to practice yet, and he needs me there to point out when he makes a mistake or misses something in the music. Soon he'll be able to practice on his own, but he's not there yet. But I don't want to drive him crazy and drive him away from enjoying the piano. He says practicing is boring. Yes, I agree, practicing *is* boring. I always thought so as a kid. But if he would learn to practice efficiently, it wouldn't take so long, and it wouldn't be so boring!!! (And now I really remind myself of my mother, I remember many "discussions" growing up involving my "efficiency" or lack thereof).
He really likes his teacher, and so I think I'll let him totally direct his own practicing this week, and only help him when he asks for it. Then if lessons don't go so well next week, maybe he'll be more willing to accept my help. We'll see if I can let go control to that extent. :-)
What else has been going on?
We did a cool biology experiment the other day and looked at my boys' cheek cells under our microscope. I bought methylene blue from this science supply store to stain the cells. It was cool. The boys thought it was cool. That made me happy. I didn't want to make 3 slides, so I took cheek swabs from all 3 boys and put them on the same slide. We need to be egalitarian around here!
Brigham's been working on a way to make homemade icees, one of my boys' favorite treats. Today he froze some diet cherry 7-up and then dumped it into a mixing bowl and went outside to smash it up with a hammer. I'm not sure how that worked out for him. :-)
Joseph and Mosey printed out maps of the world and played a long and involved game involving rolling the dice and taking over parts of the world which they carefully colored in with colored pencil. I couldn't quite figure out the rules, but it was inspired by the game of Risk they've been playing against each other online.
Mosey made a "gull whacker" which he's been carrying around and playing with for the last week or so. We just finished the 4th Redwall book (Mariel of Redwall) in which the main character (Mariel) made ferocious use of a piece of knotted rope she called her "gull whacker" (since it was first used to whack some gulls that were trying to eat her). Mosey says he wants to dress up as Mariel of Redwall for Halloween. I love that! Why not let him dress up as a female warrior mouse?! So what if no one else has a clue what he is dressed up as. :-)
I fixed the poster than Mosey tore up. It took a long time. I hope he never does that again. I think I'll make him one so he can appreciate how special the ones I made for Brigham and Joseph are to them.
I don't have anything else much to report. I'm keeping up with the essentials, but feel like I'll never catch up on the other less-essential things that need to get done. Like getting estimates for our roof (which we *still* haven't got replaced, but really need to, since we actually had rain this past week for the first time in months), estimates for getting our fence replaced, a bunch of thank you cards that have been sitting on my desk and need to be mailed out as soon as I locate my stamps, etc., etc. But it's past 11 PM now, and I have to go to bed, so I guess I'm not going to be making much progress on those things tonight. Maybe tomorrow. :-)