November!!!

Last week was absolutely insane. I spent a lot of hours sewing Halloween costumes. Like, a whole lot. I stayed up all night Tuesday night /Wednesday morning. Then Friday morning I was up until 6:30, and slept until 9:30. Was it time well spent? I'm not sure. But the boys loved their costumes, and I think they will always remember them, so maybe it was. Mosey was especially thrilled. He is a wolf, although he was more often mistaken for a mouse. Oh well. Ben said he growled "TRICK OR TREAT" in his fiercest wolf growl, and that it was really cute. And he also bragged to everyone that his mom made his costume, so that was good. I think he wore it for about 4 days straight.
The boys had lots of occasions to wear their costumes, thank goodness! The big boys had their Halloween piano recital. Wednesday night was the fall festival at the church. Friday afternoon was the big homeschool parkday Halloween party. Friday night Ben took the boys and crashed Cedar Park/Cypress Creek wards' Trunk-or-treat (since our ward didn't have one and the boys really wanted to go). Saturday, of course was Halloween.
Anyway. November is here, and here are a couple of pictures from the trick-or-treaters. I have more pictures, but no more time to upload them right now. I hope tomorrow.




What do you think? Joseph was a sorcerer, Brigham was a union soldier (he designed the costume himself, complete with drawings. I adapted another pattern I had and he picked out all the accessories like the gold buttons and braids and stuff), and Mosey was of course a wolf. Ben was a "math wizard" and wore long wizards robes which he decorated with construction-paper math equations while he was at work. He had a wizard's hat, too, but is not wearing it in the picture. He was a judge for some sort of costume contest at work, I think, so he needed to show up with a costume. Last year he wore his "This is my costume" t-shirt, and he actually got a talking-to because it was on a Friday which is casual workday at his office, but all shirts still have to have collars. Dumb, right?
I wanted to make myself a costume, but had no time. Brigham told me, "You deserve a costume, too, mom!" But, really, I'm ok if I don't pull my sewing machine out again for several more months...

Another weekend over and out

Here it is Sunday night, the next week looming ahead of me. The last week of October. Where, oh where, does the time go? I was talking with some friends this afternoon. My friend Liz said, "It feels like what used to be full minutes are now only 45 seconds." I feel the same way.

We had a good weekend. The boys had soccer games on Saturday morning. Joseph and Brigham had a Halloween piano recital and party, and had to leave at half-time. But actually their game started late. They were supposed to have pictures taken before the game-- our boys got there 45 minutes before their game for this purpose, but everything was already behind schedule, and at 10:25 their game finally started, without ever getting around to pictures. So the boys played for 5 minutes, and then had to leave for the recital, and they missed the team pictures. Oh well. Last year they missed the Halloween recital for a soccer game, and they really wanted to play in the recital this year.

Mosey is coming along in his soccer. The first couple of games he hasn't been too engaged. He just doesn't care enough about kicking the ball to want to try to break through the throng of little kids following the ball around the field. But last week and this week we asked him how many times he was going to kick the ball, and that seemed to motivate him. So yesterday he would kick the ball, and then come running across the field to the sideline to yell, "Mom, did you see me kick the ball?!" "Yes, Mosey, that was great, now run back over to try to kick it again!" He is cute. There are a couple of little boys on his team that are very good, so I think the score ended up being 7 or 8 to 1, or even worse. Good thing they don't keep score for these little kids, it would be pretty discouraging to the other kids. As it is, I'm not sure Mosey even cares that much if his team wins, he's just excited when he gets to kick the ball.

Yesterday evening we drove to the Stake Center to audition for a Stake talent show in a couple of weeks. Brigham learned (by ear! two hands!) "We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet," and I played an accompanying part on the violin and Ben played along on the 3 chords he knows on the guitar. :-) Mosey beat his homemade oatmeal container drum. We tried mightily to get Joseph to play chords on the piano as well, but he was having NONE OF THAT. If they accept us (I have not the slightest idea what our chances are), I'm going to really try to convince him to join us. I think he would really enjoy performing, if he would give it a chance.

Earlier in the afternoon I talked with a woman from California (I think) who has been accepted into the HALT-MS trial in Houston, although has not gotten insurance approval yet. She had a bunch of questions and it was good to talk to her. It was kind of weird going through all of that stuff again in my mind, though. I think it is good that more than a year has passed. This time last year I'm not sure I would have responded in exactly the same way to some of her questions.
I am a little hesitant to really offer advice anyway, because each person's experience will be different from anyone else's. The things I found most intolerable about the stem cell transplant might not be a big problem for someone else.
My sister sent me a link to a really great NY Times article on MD Anderson (where I had my transplant), and in one place the author wrote, "Anti-nausea drugs have all but eliminated the constant vomiting that once accompanied chemotherapy." Well, not for me. The difficult recovery I had would have been much easier if I hadn't been so sick.
I'm very glad I had the transplant, and I would still make the same decision. However, I'm not sure I would ever choose to go through that experience again.
It was interesting to hear the concerns and worries this woman has pre-transplant. I was worried about those same things. But now looking back, those were not the things I should have been worried about. There were other things that ended up being way worse. I didn't tell her that, though, because like many things, there are some aspects of the transplant experience that are best left unknown before-hand.
Physically, she is a lot better off than I am. Her EDSS score is a lot lower than mine. I wonder how that will affect her experience. I knew going into it that I didn't have much of a choice. If my MS continued to progress as it was, I would be in extremely bad shape. But she's had MS for 10 years and has not experienced a rapid progression. I hope that in the dark days of the transplant process she doesn't have deep regrets.
Anyway, I hope she gets insurance approval soon. I feel bad that it has been so difficult for Dr. Hutton and Dr. Popat to get patients for this study.

shots

I finally got my act together and got a regular primary care physician. Like I need another doctor. I guess this is #4 for me.
I got my first set of immunizations yesterday! Four shots in the arm. I imagine it was rather less traumatic than the first time I got these shots when I was a baby. :-)
The doctor was somewhat confused at first. She asked if I were traveling abroad, and I had to explain the whole stem cell transplant/ M.S. thing, and even then she was a little baffled about how to proceed. I guess I'm her first post-stem cell transplant patient. Dr. Hutton gave me an immunization schedule when I saw him in July, and eventually we figured it out.
I ought to have started these a couple of months ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to make another doctor's appointment. I was moaning to Ben a few days ago about how I wish I never had to walk into another doctor's office again for the rest of my life. Can't I just do phone consultations? :-) I can give myself my own shots, can't they just phone them in to the pharmacy and I'll pick them up myself? (I'm kidding) (sort of)
I have to go back to my Austin neurologist next week for prescription refills. I haven't seen him since I think February or March, so it's been a while, but I still don't want to go. I like Dr. Tallman, he's a good doctor and a very nice guy. I'm just really sick of doctors.
I mostly want to coast along right now and try as much as possible not to think about myself in any medical terms at all. But I've got this appointment next week, then in another couple of months I have to go in for another set of immunizations. After that, I think I'm free until next July!! (Barring anything unforeseen, of course, knock on wood).

how to train your son in the gentlemanly arts

Brigham was so sweet today. We went to piano lessons this afternoon and Joseph and Mosey hopped out of the car and scampered inside (Joseph was first for lessons today). I was getting my purse and crutches together when I heard Brigham say from the back seat, "Can I help you get inside, mom?"
Can you believe that? It was so cute. I told him he was the most gentlemanly little boy I know. He got out of the car, closed the sliding door, and walked over to my side of the car. After I got out, he closed the door behind me and then held my arm as I made my way into the house. It's actually not terribly helpful to have him holding onto my arm, but there was no way I was going to tell him that! It was seriously so sweet. (In about 15-20 years there's going to be one lucky girl who gets to marry this boy who's getting quite an education in how to be a gentleman...)
You know, I'd never, ever, not in any way, ever choose to have M.S. But if I didn't have M.S. I never would have had this sweet little experience with my boy this afternoon.
And that's something.

Ouch

The boys had conflicting soccer games again today, so Ben took Mosey to his game and I took the big boys to theirs. At their last game, Joseph and Brigham's team won 5:1. Today it was pretty much the inverse of that score... So sad! The other team was really good and they had 3 very tall, very good players who made some spectacular goals, so it was no shame to lose to them. But it is never fun to lose a game, and I think this is only the 2nd (or 3rd?) loss they've ever experienced. Joseph seemed to let it roll off his back pretty fast, but Brigham (my ultra-competitive boy) was very upset. Oh, the tears!!
Brigham is extremely sensitive about anything possibly being his fault. I don't necessarily blame him (no pun intended) because he is pretty conscientious and tries hard not to do anything wrong. But he can get a little obsessive over it sometimes. I think nearly all the times we've had to get after Brigham are when he is blaming someone else for something that was probably his fault. And whenever I give a general instruction like, "Please keep the legos off the kitchen floor," he'll immediately say, "It wasn't ME, mom!" Yes, Brigham, I know it wasn't you, I wasn't blaming anyone, just giving general advice...
Anyway, the goal keeper on the boys' team was understandably not having a very good time, and apparently he blamed Brigham for somehow being responsible for 3 of the goals. Which was of course ridiculous because Brigham was not playing defense and I'm sure had nothing to do with it. And it could be that the other boy didn't even really blame Brigham, but that's how Brigham took it. So there were many, many tears about that.
As sad as it was, however, I'm glad for them to get these smaller experiences of disappointment. Joseph started telling me how the other team "cheated a lot" and one of the boys was grabbing his hands, but I tried to shut that down and tell them that losing is no fun, and it's ok to feel sad, but it is no shame to lose to a better team.
Joseph was over it quickly, and after a cherry icee from Burger King, Brigham was feeling better, too. I hope all their disappointments in life will be equally easily resolved.

And I hope they win next week.

Wolf Mosey?

Mosey's been in fine form tonight. He decided to talk exclusively in a (very loud) growl all evening. He was pretending to be a wolf. He declared that Joseph was a rat, and when Joseph protested, he growled/yelled, "YES YOU ARE, YOU ARE THE BIGGEST RAT I'VE EVER SEEN!!!" It was very funny.
Later, Joseph was teasing me that after they go to bed, I stay up till 2:00 in the morning playing computer games and eating ice cream (I only wish!). When I said I've never done that in my life (well, at least, not since I was a teenager), Mosey growled/yelled, "YES YOU DO, I WAS SPYING ON YOU LAST NIGHT. I WAS UP TILL MIDNIGHT BECAUSE ACTUALLY I'M NOCTURNAL!!!" I think he may just be right.
His sleeping has never been good. I've been moaning about his lack of sleeping since he was a baby. He really doesn't seem to need as much sleep as his brothers, I guess. He really struggles falling asleep. Of course it doesn't help that he sneaks out of his room, annoys his brothers, rolls around and around when he *is* in bed, and otherwise doesn't appear to make any attempt at actually sleeping. I don't know.
I've resorted to giving him Benadryl at bed time. Is that bad? Tonight will be the second night. It seemed to help last night. I just can't have him messing around upstairs until 10:30 PM!!!
He's reading this post over my shoulder, and his response just now was (in his growl/yell), "BLAHHHH!!!!" That's what he thinks about that!

(I love this picture of Mosey. It was obviously a snapshot taken with no thought as to location or background, but I so rarely get a natural smile out of him, so I don't care.)

The pits

Joseph took Mister on a walk yesterday morning. When he returned, he came in the front door and called out, "Mom, a strange dog followed me home!" I yelled for Ben to go check out the situation. The poor dog was starving (so skinny, his ribs were sticking out), dirty, and looked as if he had either been in a fight, or hit by a car (deep cuts on his chest/front legs). He had a collar, but no tags. We took him in the backyard and fed him (he's had 3 HUGE bowls of food since yesterday morning-- about what Mister eats in a whole week). We called animal control to report a found dog, and I took a couple of pictures and posted them on Craigslist (did you know there is a lost and found section on that site?). Later in the afternoon, I did some research and we discovered he is most likely a pit bull. :-(
Not only are we NOT looking for another dog, we are most definitely NOT looking for a pit bull. Ben and I both don't understand why people continue to breed that particular dog. They are responsible for like 70% of all dog-related fatalities. It's not necessarily that they are more aggressive than other dogs, but their jaws are very powerful and their instinct is to bite and never let go. They were originally bred to fight bulls!!! If you pester another dog enough, they might growl and snap at you, but if you pester a pit bull and he snaps at you, you could be severely maimed. It's not their fault, it's just how they were bred. A pit bull can have a very nice temperament (and apparently they usually are loyal and affectionate), but one bad moment (as all dogs have), and you could have big trouble.
I emailed 8 different rescue organizations in this area, but all of them replied and said there is no space. So Ben called animal control and someone will come pick him up sometime tomorrow.
It is very sad. He is actually a very, very friendly dog. If he weren't a pit bull, he would probably be quite adoptable. Poor thing had the bad luck to be born a pit bull. He will undoubtedly be euthanized after 72 hours in the shelter. Who wants to adopt an abandoned pit bull?
At least we're giving him a couple of days of plenty of food, a warm place to sleep, and some affection and attention.
So sad, though.

Update: Two women officers came and got him. It was so sad, he was really, really excited to see them. He ran up to them with his tail wagging like crazy. They slipped a leash over his head and he jumped up on one of them, licking her, his tail going like a helicopter rotor. They told me they'd scan him for a chip. I hope he has one. The boys were pretty sad to see him go. Poor thing.

Hair

I got a haircut today. I can never quite do it the way the hair stylist does, so I thought I'd better take a picture while it looks good. Plus I really needed an updated profile picture (the one up before was a few years old). Ben snapped this out in front of our house this evening. I really don't like being in front of the camera!
The boys got haircuts a few days ago, too, but they wanted to take some crazy hair pictures before it all got cut off. I don't know why they are all smiling with their mouths closed!
Joseph likes the bouffant look.


Spiked! Brigham kept re-wetting his hair and then standing on the table to look in the living room mirror to comb his hair straight up again.


Mosey's hair isn't that crazy. Let's hope this is as crazy as he ever cares to get with his hair!

Conference memories

Some memorable moments from this last weekend's conference:
--Listening to my boys belt out "How Firm a Foundation" (my favorite hymn) during the Sunday morning session. The Primary has been learning this hymn the past few months getting ready for the primary program.
--Playing conference BINGO with peanut MnMs and seeing my boys actually pay attention to the talks!
--Halloween decorating party during Priesthood session (only 4 more years till the big boys go).
--Elder Holland's Sunday afternoon talk. I don't think I need to add anything more than that, do I?

Halloween season upon us again!

I wrote a few weeks ago about Brigham designing a type of perpetual motion machine. Well, this week I was reading a book (Physics of the Impossible, by Michio Kaku, one of the founders of string theory), and came across a description of one of the first perpetual motion machines designed in Bavaria in the 8th century. Guess what? It's the exact same model that Brigham designed and drew and showed me a few weeks ago. Ha! Isn't that amazing? I couldn't explain to Brigham why it wouldn't work, but now I know. Friction in the inner bearings of the wheel gradually bring it to a stop. Maybe Brigham will follow in the illustrious footsteps of his grandfather and two uncles in his physics interests.
We're doing biology this semester, and human biology to be specific for the next few weeks. It's been very fun teaching the boys. They drew a poster of "undie-Mosey" (because I traced the outline of his head and torso while he was in his undies), highlighting the digestive tract. They each labeled certain parts and wrote a description of what its function is. Mosey labeled the very end of the digestive tract, and underneath "rectum," wrote "stores poop." Funny, huh? They are very matter-of-fact about bodily functions, which makes teaching this stuff to them way easier than it would be (I imagine) in a typical public school classroom.
Joseph and Brigham had their 2nd soccer game this morning. They've had 2 games rained out now. Our stake had a special fast for rain this past September, and 4 days after the fast, central Texas had its first widespread rainfall since August 2007. And since then it has rained, and rained, and rained. My brother Benjamin and Ben's two brothers came to visit us right before then, when Austin was brown and parched. It's so green and beautiful now!
Anyway, their game today did not get rained out (although it rained all afternoon), and they won 5-1. They won their first game 3-1. Their coach used to be a semi-pro soccer player, and is really good. Brigham scored the last goal of the game and both boys were pretty elated when they got home. I didn't go see it because Mosey woke up this morning and promptly threw up all over the kitchen floor. Mosey gets these stomach bugs periodically where he will throw up 3 or 4 times, and be sick for a few hours, and then get completely over it. So he missed his game and I stayed home with him. Mosey's not totally enamored with soccer yet. He doesn't have the competitive spirit in him, although I expect that will come.
Conference was nice today. I edited all of my brother Christian's senior pictures during the talks. Now I only have 2 months of my own photos to edit. :-) (this may not seem like much to you, but you have no idea how many pictures I take).
Wearing the proud maroon and gold of my Alma Mater, La Canada High School (we were the Spartans which I always thought was funny because LCHS was quite an academically-oriented high school, and if the Spartans were known for anything, it was for their intellectual prowess, right?!) :


My sister made him this shirt a couple of years ago, because Christian really is a Renaissance man. He taught himself Greek as an elementary student, went to the junior Olympics in jumproping, sang in the Los Angeles Children's Choir (he has an incredibly amazing voice), and is at BYU on full scholarship (don't you DARE lose that scholarship, Christian!). AND, he's dang good-looking, to boot. I'm just a little bit proud of him. :-)


Mosey has been sooooooo excited for Halloween. He's been begging to put up Halloween decorations, but I told him not until October. So Ben brought in the halloween boxes from the garage and while he was at Priesthood meeting tonight, the boys and I put on the soundtrack to Nightmare Before Christmas and decorated the house for Halloween. I've got 4 ghosts and a jack-o-lantern staring down at me from on top of my desk. It was fun to listen to the boys reminiscing about the decorations we have made and acquired over the years. This is why I bother with decorations, these things are what make up childhood memories.
I'm trying to stick to my guns about the homemade costumes this year. It's hard because Brigham really wants to be Darth Vader, and I'm not going to put together a homemade Darth Vader costume. Mosey wants to be Luke Skywalker, which is fine. I am trying to convince them all to choose a character from the Redwall books (we're on book 5 now, these are such perfect books for my boys' ages and interests). It would be so fun and cute! I think I've got Joseph convinced, but not the other two. Oh well. I am NOT doing Party City costumes this year, though.
Let's see, what else?
The boys have been spending a lot of time building with blocks. They go through cycles with their toys. The blocks had been put away for a while, but now they're out again.
These pictures are unedited point-and-shoot snapshots, don't judge. :-)
Here's a joint-venture creation: (yes, this is the playroom, and yes it really was this messy)


The finished product, shortly before they destroyed it (Joseph isn't wearing makeup, he was eating a strawberry popsicle and decided to paint his face with it):


And another one later that night by Brigham. It's quite a lot taller than himself:


That's it, folks!

crazy babies :-)

We went to the park today. The boys had to bring their star wars light sabers (of course). Soon they were off playing on the equipment and building sand castles and the light sabers ended up on the picnic table bench next to me. A little girl, maybe 14-16 months old or so, wandered over and picked up one of the light sabers and started toddling around with it. Mosey saw her and came running over. "Mom, that baby has Joseph's light saber! Tell that baby to give it back!" I told him it was ok for her to play with it and I would keep an eye on her. Moses wasn't convinced, and followed her around for the next few minutes, obviously suspicious.
I glanced over a couple of minutes later and saw him knelt down in front of her, in earnest conversation about the light saber. It was so funny! He has so little experience with babies, I don't think he realized that she can't talk, and most likely didn't understand a word he was saying. :-)
Something about the way he was calling her "that baby" made me laugh. To him she wasn't a boy or a girl, or maybe not even human, just this strange species called "baby." It was like he was pointing out "that dog" or "that squirrel." She was "that baby" who was going to abscond with our light saber!
I snapped a picture of him in conversation with "that baby." When I pulled out my camera, Joseph raced over to try to prevent the picture being taken, and distracted Moses from his interaction, but it is still funny.

Tonight we went to see the bats (again). I picked up Ben from work and we headed downtown. When we got down to the bridge and parked about a block away, Ben got out of the van to get the wheelchair out of the back of the van. Oops, no wheelchair. So he carried me piggyback all the way to the viewing area! He is strong. I was embarrassed.
Ben doesn't understand why I care. I tried to explain what it is like always being conspicuous everywhere I go. Unless I am in my car, everywhere I go in public, I'm conspicuous and people look at me. It doesn't necessarily bother me, I would look, too. It's just weird because I'm not an attention-seeking person and it feels strange to have people looking at and wondering about me all the time.
But my only other option was to stay in the van by myself and I didn't want to do that either.
Ben bought the boys a plastic light sword (like we need another light saber). The boys (mostly Mosey) had fun whirling it around in the dark. I hope they had fun, anyway, because it had already broken before we even left the park... Oh well.
Joseph let me take one picture of him with the light saber, only because the light cast an eerie blue cast on his face.

soccer!

Today was the boys' first soccer games.
Last night we went to Academy for new soccer cleats and shin guards and socks and soccer shorts. Mosey is playing this year! He was very excited and it was so cute to see him trying on his cleats and go running down the aisles of the store to make sure they fit.
We decided to go with YMCA soccer this year, even though registration closed like a month ago. I called the director and was able to get my boys on some teams (even better, the big boys' team practices at Spicewood Elementary, 2 minutes from our house! How lucky is that?). Their first game (last Saturday) was rained out, so they didn't miss anything.
NYS was great last year, but it sure was hard figuring out scheduling for Ben coaching, and the NYS organization left much to be desired. Not to mention the games were far away.
YMCA looks good to us so far. It's pretty laid back. The big boys' team has a great coach and they had a great time at their game (they won 2-0 and I can tell Brigham's going to be their best player). Mosey's team is a 4-6 yr old team, for kids who have never played before. Their practices are 30 minutes Saturday morning, followed by a "game." They don't really keep score. The purpose seems to be to let the kids get used to kicking the ball and having a good time. Fine by me! I'm glad that Mosey is getting to do something on his own. I sometimes worry about him defining himself as a "little brother." He needs his own things. So even though Joseph and Brigham are also playing, he's on his own team and that is good. And we got him his own cleats and shorts and shin guards even though he could have used hand-me-downs from last year.
I took the big boys to their game this morning and Ben took Mosey to his (1 of only 2 games that will conflict this season-- they are held at different schools so there's no way to be at both!). It was really hard getting there. It's a pretty long walk down a gravel pathway to get to the field. I tried using the wheelchair, but the gravel made it really hard, so I mostly used my crutches. I had to go back to the car halfway through the game to get something, and so getting back to the car after the game (my 4th time down that gravel path) was pretty torturous.
I'm pretty used to my daily life with my physical limitations, but when something new or unexpected comes up like this, I get pretty annoyed. I really wish I could walk.
So, our Saturday's are all planned out for us for the next couple of months! :-)

Roofer recommendations?

For any Austinite who might be reading this blog (if you haven't given up on me because of my recent boring and picture-less posts), I need some recommendations for roofers. We had one company that we almost went with last spring before we realized they were trying to rip us off. And since then we've heard a few horror stories from people whose roofers have either ripped them off or did a really shoddy job. Anyone have any great experiences with roofers? Honest roofers? Didn't cut corners? Does such a company exist? Let me know!

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. :-)

Joseph's nightmare

Joseph's least favorite school subject is math. I'm not sure why, because he is good at it, and when I can actually get him to sit and concentrate for any length of time, he is pretty fast and seems to enjoy it.
Last year we would spend sometimes hours each day, with me trying to get him to do his math, having to sit with him and work through every single problem because if I turned away for even a second, he would sit there and stare into space and do nothing.
This year I compromised with him and told him if he would concentrate and have a good attitude and not waste time, he could wait and do math after dinner. He's been pretty good with this arrangement! Sometimes I still get a few grumbles, but overall, it is way better than it was last year.
Last week I was working on math with him on Tuesday night. It got kind of late, and he didn't get in bed until after 10:00. I was up finishing chores when I heard him come down the stairs. I went out to tell him to go back to bed, but he told me he had a nightmare, and asked if he could please sleep in my room. I told him to go ahead, and continued with my chores. A few minutes later, he came out of my room, almost in tears, telling me he keeps having the same nightmare and he can't get out of it. I went in to comfort him and gave him a stuffed tiger to protect him (I love that he still feels protected from bad dreams by a stuffed tiger!). He slept the rest of the night and I forgot about it.
Then a couple of days ago he reminded me of the bad dream and told me what it was. He was on a big soccer field and a giant number 3 and giant number 7 came running at him from either side, with a scary "Thum, thum, thum, thum, thum!" noise in the background. Just before they collided with him, he woke up. But when he closed his eyes again, he was back on the soccer field with the giant letters running him down.
Isn't that funny? I used to have nightmares when I had been up too late studying. I remember one vivid dream where I found myself amidst a giant organic chemistry model set, watching reactions taking place all around me. This dream scared Joseph a lot, though. I better not let him stay up too late doing math anymore!

09-09-09

I forgot to mark 09-09-09! And now it's after midnight, so it's 09-10-09. Oh well. I did think about it, but not at 09:09:09 on 09/09/09. What a silly thing!
Oh, I'm getting sooooo behind with my photos! I haven't processed a single one for more than a month, and there have been several big events (trip to CA, the boys' birthday and baptism, Benjamin's visit, my birthday, and this last weekend with family in town). When will I have time?! Maybe I'll have to go back to how I used to do things and share (gasp!) *unedited* photos. Can I do it? Um, maybe not quite yet.
But since I am resolved to document my life a little better, photographs or no, here goes.
Last Friday some friends in my ward threw me a birthday party. It was so fun, and the first time I've had a party like that since I was a little kid. I got some nice presents and enjoyed feeling special for the night. There are lots of really good people here.
The past few days have been busy! My two brothers-in-law (Tyler and Ted, Ben's brothers) and my oldest nephew (9 months older than Brigham and Joseph) came for the weekend. We packed in the fun!
Saturday morning we left bright and early for San Antonio. We first went to the Wildlife Safari park just north of San Antonio, which was great fun. You drive in your car through this park that has wild animals roaming around. We saw giraffes, zebras, rhinoceroses, ostriches, a whole bunch of different kinds of antelope-type animals, buffalo, etc. You get bags of food when you go into the park to feed the animals, so the animals are trained to come right up to the car. It was really cool to see the animals up so close, and even more fun watching the boys interact with them. Joseph was the most fearless. Max (the boys' cousin) was a little more timid, and kept saying that Joseph was "Either really brave or really stupid!" :-) The scariest and most aggressive of the animals was this Emu (I think it was an emu, it looked like a brown ostrich). It was SO aggressive. We rolled up the windows and it kept pecking at the window-- hard! He would have stuck his whole head and neck in the car if he could have! At one point Ben used Mosey's paper airplane (which he had me make for him and then carefully decorated himself and had been playing with it for the last few days) to put some food in and reach out the window to feed the emu. When Ben tried to bring his hand back in the car, he dropped the plane. And there was NO way we were going to open the door to get it, not with that crazy emu right there! So there were many tears. Finally the emu went away and we were going to back up to retrieve the plane, and just then, a park ranger came by in his golf cart, and picked it up. Oh dear! More tears. At the end we got out of the car to go into a little petting zoo filled with miniature goats. The goats were obsessed with my wheelchair. It was pretty cute. They kept coming up and rubbing their horns on the wheels, and hiding underneath. The boys tried to feed them the rest of their bags of food, but the goats seemed more interested in the paper bags than the food... Anyway, while we were there, Ben saw the ranger that picked up Mosey's plane, and after talking to him, he managed to track down where it had been deposited and gave it back to Mosey! So all was well. I'm telling you, one of the most difficult things for me to deal with as a parent is my child's disappointment. I feel compelled to do nearly anything to assuage those feelings. I know it's not good, every child *needs* to experience disappointment, and especially how to work through it when things can't be fixed. But it is so painful for me. There's enough inevitable disappointment in life, isn't there? Isn't it ok to fix what I can?
After the safari, we went to the San Antonio River Walk (which is not particularly wheelchair accessible!), and to the Alamo. It had been a couple of years since we had been there before, which is a long time for these little kids, so it was pretty fun to go again. Then we went to the Tower of the Americas (San Antonio's space needle-- actually taller than the one in Seattle) where the boys scared me to death by leaning on the elevator doors while waiting for the ride back down. The elevator door opens up to the outside (it is an outside-facing elevator) about 60 stories up! Yikes! I'm sure it was safe, but still, creepy to think about.
On the way home Ben kept checking the stats on the BYU game with his Blackberry, and when we got back home we found the game online and he and his brothers watched the last half of the game which, as we know, was extremely exciting for everyone.
Sunday after church we had dinner (I made Texas sheet cake for the first time-- yum!) and then toured around Austin a little (went to the lake--what's left of it anyway, and drove through Steiner Ranch), climbed Mt. Bonnel and then to see the bats. The bats didn't come out until after 8:00, and it was nearly dark, so we didn't stay too long, but Max still said it was "the coolest thing he ever saw," so mission accomplished!
Monday we went to the Texas State History Museum, which is a small natural history museum on the UT campus. It was perfect for the amount of time we had, and it was free. The boys all liked the dinosaurs and the dinosaur footprints. We dropped Ty and Max off at the airport and then headed back home to clean up after the weekend.
The playroom was a giant mess, and I had to really urge the boys on to get it organized again. Mosey was so funny, he kept finding toys he liked and saying, "I'm going to put this one in a special place so that if any crazy babies come to our house, they won't find it!" He kept going on and on about the "crazy babies." What crazy babies?! I sure wish I would have been able to give him a baby sister or brother to drive him crazy for real!
And speaking of crazy babies, Mosey was a very bad boy on Sunday night. He was wound up and didn't want to go to sleep, so he kept kicking Joseph and Brigham and turning off the light and basically causing havoc upstairs. So I told Joseph and Brigham to go sleep in another room and lock it so Mosey couldn't go in. They did this and Mosey went back to sleep in the other room. Well, the next day Brigham discovered the poster I had made for him when he was student of the week all torn up. :-( It's not totally unsalvageable, the pictures are not torn up, just torn off the poster. But it will require some hours to get it put back together. I was extremely sad and upset about that. Where is this attitude coming from my mellow Mosey?
The rest of the week we have attempted to get some lessons done. I have my next Enrichment activity tomorrow night (well, tonight), so that has occupied some of my time. Tomorrow we probably won't get too much schoolwork done.
Mosey has really gotten into the Magic Treehouse books the past couple of days. He's read parts of them before, but between yesterday and today, he has read 3 in a row! He's been such a good reader for a long time, but still hasn't been *that* into reading, at least not for long periods of time. I guess his attention span is now long enough to hold him to a book for 30-40 minutes at a time. It was fun to see him on the couch today, totally absorbed.
OK, time for bed. Way too late (as usual).

Bad dog!

Well, I'm going to pound another nail into the "We'll never have a dog" coffin of any of my dogless friends and family who read these updates.
Mister was in the doghouse (boy, do I ever know where that phrase comes from) bigtime today.
I woke up and came out into the kitchen to see last night's pizza box on the floor, the 2 remaining pieces of pizza noticeably missing. And then I saw the Papa Johns garlic butter sauce splattered all over the floor. Then I noticed the plate of peanut butter brownies I had made mysteriously missing from the countertop.
I regretfully told the boys they were not having cold pizza for breakfast (always one of the pleasures of ordering pizza around here, and a nice excuse for not making breakfast), mopped the floor, and tried to tell myself it was a good thing the brownies were gone because I was the only one who was really eating them anyway.
But the stupid dog kept following me around like, well, a dog all morning and he was just irritating me. I emailed Ben and told him that Mister probably wouldn't be following me like a shadow if he knew I was having to restrain myself from kicking him every time he crossed my path...
Then tonight I made pizza (yes, I know, pizza 2 nights in a row). I just made a biscuit crust so the pizzas were in 2 pyrex pans. One of them got eaten up, and then the boys had to go to Cub Scouts (their first meeting!!!), and I had to go to a visiting teaching interview, and I didn't have time to clean up the kitchen, so I put one of the pyrex pans over the other that had the leftover pizza in it. OK, not the best move in hindsight. But still.
I had only been gone for 20 minutes. I came home to find shards of glass covering the kitchen floor. Mister tried to get at the leftover pizza again, somehow got the top pan off (and this was in the middle of our kitchen table, I can't imagine how he reached it), and in the process knocked it off the table where it shattered on our tile floor (I love tile, but EVERYTHING BREAKS). At least he didn't get the leftover pizza this time. The shattering pan must have scared him off. Although I'd rather have my pyrex back than the leftover pizza. But there's at least a tiny bit of satisfaction that Mister didn't get what he was obviously aiming for.
And THEN I saw he had been in the trash can (presumably before he attempted to steal the pizza), and the lid was on the floor and half the contents strewn all around.
Oooh, I was very, very, very, very mad. Ben came home and I said, "This just might be the last straw with this dog. I do not want to have a dog anymore."
Brigham got very worried and said, "But I love Mister!" And launched into all the reasons he loves him.
Sigh... We won't get rid of Mister. We've had him for 10 years and we'll take care of him until he dies. But I'm also pretty positive we won't get another dog. Between the hair and the escaping (oh, have I told you how many friends we've made around the neighborhood because of our stupid dog always escaping? I haven't? Oh, right. That's because we haven't made a single one) and the stolen food (I'm still not over him stealing the lunchmeat from last year), the scratched up doors and ruined carpet, I think I'm just not a dog person anymore.
The problem with our bad dog is that I have no proper way of venting my anger when he misbehaves. I can't yell at him after-the-fact because he won't have a clue what I'm angry about. I can't lecture him endlessly like I might if he were my child because he's a dumb dog. I can't even hope that at least this time maybe he's learned his lesson, because I know he hasn't. I can only get mad at myself. And that's no fun at all.
It is ironic that he follows me around everywhere I go in the house. Where ever I am, there he is. I say "Move, Mister" about 5,000 times a day, because whenever I turn around, there he is, right in my way. He is loyal, he's got that going for him. But he is loyal to the wroooong person. I am the one who likes this dog least in our household, but I'm the one he insists on following around.
Anyway. I guess I'm feeling a little better letting it all out.

Electromagnetism for dummies

When I started homeschooling the boys, I thought, with supreme confidence, that I could handle all the math and science the boys would need at least through high school. Certainly I had no doubts at all that I could handle elementary-school science. I didn't count on having a son like Brigham.
I created email addresses for all the boys. Joseph and Mosey have already written grandma a couple of emails. Brigham tells me he can't send any emails until he learns how a computer works.
Um, that could take a while.
Tonight, as I was trying to help Joseph slog through his long division, Brigham comes up to me with his "The Way Science Works" book which he has been studying. He wants to know exactly how electricity is related to electromagnetic waves. So I tell him that an electric current creates a magnetic field, and a changing magnetic field creates an electric current. But that's not enough. He wants to know exactly what *is* an electromagnetic wave. So I blithely tell him that it is a stream of photons that have particle and wavelike properties. But that's not enough. He already knows that electricity is the flow of electrons, and that electromagnetic waves are the flow of photons (roughly speaking). But he wants to know how electricity makes electromagnetic radiation and exactly what *is* a magnetic field anyway? What is it made of?
Um, I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry and took several upper-level physical chemistry and physics classes, and I still don't know how to answer these questions.
I'm feeling a little dumb right now. And more than a little worried I'm not going to be equipped to keep up with this boy's scientific curiosity.
And I'm wondering how this same boy cannot remember how to spell "made" even though he's had the word on his spelling list for 4 straight spelling lessons.

mommy time?

Today was a little rough.
It started with me waking to the glorious sound of little boys screaming at each other, then my bedroom door slamming closed and Mosey shouting, tears running down his face, "Joseph threw my soccer ball into the pool FOR NO REASON!!!" (This "for no reason" thing is a favorite addendum to whatever bad action is being tattled about, and bears no relation to whether or not there actually was a reason for said bad action).
Sigh...
So begins another day.
It wasn't so bad, once the argument was settled (Mosey was trying to introduce a 2nd soccer ball into the game the boys were playing, and everyone knows you can't play soccer with 2 balls).
It was just a long day and by late this afternoon my brain was just about on overload. All three boys had to tell me things all day at top volume, and I didn't have a break all day long.
By about 5:30 I was at my breaking point and told the boys, "I need to take some mommy time, so you all go play and let me do my own stuff for a while, ok?" This lasted about 2 minutes after which time Mosey came up to me and said, "You're doing mommy time now, right?" "Yes, Mosey." "OK, then can you come and help me build a road for my kapla block capitol building?" He had been working on this elaborate kapla block creation for most of the day, requiring me to come and look and give the appropriate laudatory remarks at regular intervals.
Well, that wasn't exactly what I meant by "mommy time." But I feel perpetually guilty about not devoting as much attention to Mosey during the day as I do to Brigham and Joseph in their lessons, so I left off what I was doing and went and built a Kapla block road for a while.
I love these boys so much, sometimes to the bursting point. Last night Mosey came and said, "I have one more birthday present for you, mom." Then he came and gave me a huge hug and said, "You can't keep this one, so you'll just have to remember it." That was a good mommy-moment.
But sometimes it's all a little too much. I try to remind myself of how I'll miss these days when all my boys want is my attention and listening ear. Most of the time that works. Other times, like tonight, I feel like my brain is going to shut down.
Tomorrow will be better.

33

There have been various birthdays that have meant particular milestones for me. 8 years old, of course. Then 14 when I was as old as Joseph Smith when he had his first vision. Then 23 when I was officially older than most missionaries, boys or girls. Before then, missionaries had always been older and more mature than I. Now I'm 33, the same age of Jesus when he was crucified. Is it blasphemous to compare myself to Jesus? Anyway, it's what I'm thinking about. I haven't accomplished quite as much in my life as he had by my age. :-)
Also, I'm 2 years from being officially halfway through my 30's which is just plain weird. I guess I don't exactly identify with 20-somethings anymore, but I definitely don't feel like I always perceived people in their 30's. But I guess that's how everyone in their 30's feels. And 40's and 50's, etc., etc. Everyone ages for the first time (and only time), so I guess aging feels just as surprising to everyone else as it does for me.
Anyway, I'm glad to be turning 33. It will be better than 32. And it puts another year between me and 31, which was distinctly NOT a good year for me. Well, it was good, but I'm also very happy to be putting more and more distance between me and it.
Sunday was a good day, although it started out not so good for poor Brigham. He was up first, as he usually is, and was up and dressed in his suit and was combing his hair by the time I finally dragged myself up to turn off the alarm. He told me he wasn't feeling good, but that maybe he was just hungry. I got ready for church, and by the time I came back into my bedroom, he was laying on the bed looking a little miserable. He said his legs felt "heavy." Ben and the boys took a long and hard bike ride last night, so I thought maybe he was sore from his bike ride.
But on the way to church, he said he felt like he was going to throw up. We went into church and sat on the couch in the foyer for the sacrament, Brigham looking white as a sheet. Sure enough he did throw up (we had brought a plastic bag in from the car just in case).
I took him home since Ben has to play the piano in primary. He felt much better, and wanted to stay for Primary (he's such a good boy), but I told him he needed to go home in case he was still sick. We went home and watched "On the Lord's Errand" (I think), the DVD about Thomas S. Monson, and it was really a joy to lay next to him on the bed and hold his hand and watch the movie with him. He is such a good boy. The descriptions of Thomas Monson as a kid reminded me of Brigham. Is that blasphemous, to compare my son to the Prophet? :-)
Anyway, I also had the pleasure of talking to him uninterrupted, which doesn't happen often enough for any of my boys. He's been extremely curious about a few topics lately, especially radios (how does an electromagnetic radio wave actually end up as sound coming out of a radio? I confess, I don't have a very clear idea myself), and energy (how is electricity generated? What is fusion?). He knows about how electricity is generated when a magnet spins around inside a coil of wire, and he's been fixated on how to make this happen without exerting any mechanical force on the magnet itself. I guess like a perpetual motion machine. Anyway, he was trying to explain his idea and I couldn't quite follow him, so he drew me a diagram, and I thought his idea was pretty ingenious, although it does violate the law of conservation of energy, so I don't think it would work. His idea is to put a bunch of magnets in a gear, and then place other magnets around it, so that the magnetic repulsion between like poles would drive the gear around and around. This would spin the magnet inside the solenoid and generate electricity.
I have a feeling that this set up wouldn't work, for the simple reason that if it did, someone would have done it already. But I couldn't explain to him theoretically why it would not work. Can someone smarter than me do it? I told him we'd have to build a model of what he was talking about to see if we could get it to work.
Still, it was a conversation that thrilled me as a mom. How awesome is it to be conversing with my son about magnets and solenoids, and the laws of physics and electricity, and have him be coming up with ideas and questions all on his own that have me stumped? Pretty awesome.

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!

Time for bed again??

How can it already be 10:30? This day has flown.
Nothing too eventful today. Lessons, horseback riding, piano practicing. I got a haircut. The girl who cut my hair told me that I could "rock this haircut" just like Victoria Beckham. She said, "She's got nothing on you!" I replied, "No, but I've got about 20 pounds on her!" I do like my hair short.
We keep getting teased for rain. Huge black clouds rolled in this afternoon, complete with thunder and lightning and that enticing ozone aroma. But no rain. It is so sad to see all the dead and dying lawns around here. I think we're supposed to be on once-a-week water restrictions around here. But we're sort of ignoring that. I haven't actually heard any official news. Just what "people" are saying. No notice in the mail or anything. So we'll keep watering our lawn as we have been and then plead ignorance if we get in trouble. Is that awful? I just can't stand the idea of our lawn totally dying and then having to re-sod.
It turns out that Mosey is a great speller! He got out his spelling book we bought yesterday and did a few pages, and then got the CD with spelling games that came with the book, and played spelling games for a couple of hours. Poor Brigham is the only one who struggles with spelling. It's sad and funny. Sad because he gets soooooo frustrated and down on himself. Funny because he's just so predictable in his misspellings. He is a chronic phonetic speller, so most of his mistakes are words that he's spelling the way they sound. Too bad we speak English where every 3rd word is some kind of spelling rule exception. But then sometimes he'll overthink himself on words that ARE spelled the way they sound. For example, he spelled "great" as "grate," but then spelled "grade" as "gread." He spelled "rain" as "rane" and "made" as "maid." Poor kid. He's really amazing in math and thinks up all these mental tricks for remembering his multiplication tables. I'm trying to help him apply this technique to spelling, helping him come up with mnemonic devices and such. Poor kid. He does almost everything else so well, he has a hard time knowing how to deal with something he struggles with. Ben was working with him on his spelling tonight, and Brigham kept telling him that his kindergarten teacher must have taught him wrong, because he was SURE she told him "rain" was spelled "rane." I highly doubt this. Brigham is practically perfect in every way (as his Grandma camp certificate states), but he definitely has a hard time admitting when he is wrong. I can't imagine where he gets that from. :-) He'll blame his mistakes on the fish if no one else is readily available. It's kind of funny, though, because he'll be blaming some teensy mistake on someone else, when it is hardly even a mistake! No one would even blink about an 8 year old misspelling "rain." He doesn't need to blame his kindergarten teacher, no one thinks any less of him. I tried to convince him that it was a good thing he is misspelling these words because it proves that we are on the right level for him in our spelling book, and he isn't wasting time on words he already knows. I don't think he's buying it.
Did I write about Joseph's new pet? I don't think so. On Saturday afternoon (his birthday), we went to eat at Texas Land and Cattle, and then pulled into a parking spot in front of Pet Co (same shopping complex as the restaurant). Joseph got excited about going to Pet Co, so I joked with him telling him we were going to the sewing store instead (a sewing machine repair store is right next door). Joseph said, "Yeah, I thought we were," but then I told him that no, we really were going into Pet Co. He's been wanting another pet for months. He's been going back and forth between a leopard gecko, a bearded dragon, and a snake. Ben and I decided to let him get a leopard gecko since they can live in the same tank as the tortoise. They are way more work than a tortoise, though. They eat crickets which have to be dusted in this calcium powder before being put in the cage. So in addition to the gecko, we had to buy a cricket house and cricket food and cricket calcium powder. It's more like getting a bunch of pet crickets and then buying a gecko to go with them. Anyway, Joseph loves this gecko whom he names "Spots." To go along with the other very creatively-named "Torty." :-) I hope we can keep this guy alive.

Back to school

The public schools in our district all started today, so that means we are back full-time as well.
Today went pretty darn well. I was comparing things to a year ago, and, as I've thought about 20,000 times over the past few weeks, am I ever glad it is this year, not last year.
Mosey started on some formal lessons. Not much, but he is working on handwriting and math. And I got him a spelling book at Walmart today because he really wanted it. :-)
And I'm again wondering how in the world it is that I have NO time? The day just flew by. A little laundry, a few meals, some lessons, a trip to Walmart, and here it is, 10:00 PM and I have not had a moment to do any of my own stuff. I have a ton of pictures that I'd like to get edited someday. A great library book I've only read 2 pages of. 3 loads of laundry clean and dry that have not been put away.
This is just life, right?
I have a really big goal of getting to bed earlier (yes, the same goal I've had at the beginning of every school year since about 10th grade), so I'm just going to have to let my list of projects keep expanding.

August 22, 2009

Today was Joseph's and Brigham's birthday.
I watched the clock until 8:25 AM and told them the moment each of them, 8 years ago, were born.
It was a really wonderful day. Their baptism and confirmation were beautiful and went perfectly. We had a fun afternoon going out to eat, shopping for special presents for each boy, and then spent the evening eating leftover cookies and building robots and legos.
It was a charmed day.
I have lots of pictures and more details, but they will have to wait for now.
I have two 8 year olds!

8th Birthday party

No pictures tonight. I'll have to add them once I get them uploaded.
We had the boys' birthday party this afternoon. My worries and disappointments about not having enough kids come were quite unfounded. I always forget how little boys, when they come together, multiply at LEAST three-fold in activity and volume.
We had 5 kids come, and honestly it would have been insane with more. As it was, Mosey got a little too wound up. He really wanted this one particular piece of cake (the snake's tail, more on that below), and asked me about 7 times if he could have it. I assured him each time that he could. Then he told me to make sure I gave it to him, because I might get confused with another boy, because "we all look kind of alike." (to be fair, 3 of the other boys also have blue eyes/blondish hair.) He told me to check his swimming suit because no one else had a swimming suit like his. Should I be worried that my son isn't confident I will recognize him in a crowd? Then when I actually WAS cutting the cake, one of the boys joked and said he wanted the whole snake, and Mosey about went nuts, reminding me, quite vociferously, that HE wanted the tail. After giving Joseph his piece (the head), I gave Mosey the end of the tail, and he was finally ok. I have no idea what made him so obsessed about it. Most of the time, though, he was mixing it up with the other kids and having a great time.
Ben couldn't get home from work until halfway through, and so Benjamin was a huge help. He supervised games in the pool, an impromptu game of soccer, lifted and threw 50+ lbs of 8 year old boys into the pool over, and over, and over. The dad of the neighbor kids stayed when he took his kids over, and manned the grill. It was so hot and I really couldn't stay outside for long. Ben got home just before dinner and helped to organize the feeding of the mob kids. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, Doritos, grapes, and juice.
I had spent the morning making the boys' cakes. Joseph requested a snake cake which turned out pretty well, even though Benjamin thought I was a little over-the-top for redoing some of the orange diamonds on its back. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, right? :-) Joseph told us it was a "Brazilian Boa Constrictor." I was so happy to make a cake to make up for the disaster last year. Benjamin actually made the cake, I cut it out, and he helped me to ice it, so it was a joint effort. Thank you, Benjamin!
Brigham invented his own dessert. We had about half of the 9x13 cake (strawberry) left over from the snake cake, so we cut that into cubes and mixed it with a small amount of whipped cream and pressed it into the bottom of a flat-bottomed glass bowl. Then we blended strawberries and cool whip and spread that on top. Then we sliced up a couple of bananas and layered them on top of the strawberry/cool whip, and THEN we spread a quart of softened vanilla ice cream over all of that. We topped it off with crushed oreos and let it set up in the freezer. This was entirely Brigham's invention, and it was GOOD. I think it will have to become a Turner tradition. Brigham's birthday delight.
After more swimming, we dragged the kids out of the pool, sang Happy Birthday, blew out candles, and ate cake (only one small piece of the snake cake left, and most of the strawberry oreo concoction got consumed, so I'm even happier that we won't have much leftover). Then presents (robotics set, electronic set, solar-powered robotics set (sense a theme?), star wars legos, Scrabble Apple game, Bop It game, and cash from grandma. A good haul. The kids all stayed about another hour after the "end" of the party (another sign of success, I think). Then the boys spent another hour and a half after the party putting legos together, assembling robots, etc. I had to practically chase them off to bed.
So I'm feeling very relieved and really looking forward to the boys' birthday and baptism tomorrow morning.

Bob Bullock, Bonnel, Ben's office, and Bats

One of these years I'm going to find time to upload my recent pictures and get them posted. Tonight is not that time.
Yesterday we had such a FUN day!
We went to the Bob Bullock History Museum, watched the Texas propaganda movie (yes, it made me tear up again), perused the museum (wow, the boys were so much better than 18 months ago, the last time we went. They actually looked at things! And liked it!), and then treated my brother (and the boys and I) to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at the IMAX, in 3D. Wow! I didn't even know 3D was an option. Now THIS is the way to watch a Harry Potter movie. We had the best seats in the house, instead of the worst (2nd to the very front row the first time).
Brigham and Joseph were very interested in the artifacts from the days of the Spanish colonization of Texas. Lots of intricately carved sword hilts and suits of armor and other such things. They couldn't be bothered before, I guess they were too young. They sat through the movie about the Texas revolution, and even asked to stay at the museum after the movie to look at a few more things and show me this awesome crown up on the 4th floor. We went to the gift shop and managed to escape, not only with no tantrums from Mosey, but also with no cheap merchandise! Miracle of miracles.
Then we drove back home up the Capital of Texas Highway (always an impressive drive for first timers to Austin). After being at home for 30 minutes we got back in the car and headed to Mt. Bonnel to meet Ben. Ben, Benjamin, and the boys hiked up to the top and I drove to County Line (Texas barbecue). By the time the boys got down off the mountain (Mt. Bonnel is as close as Austin gets to mountains, all 760 ft. above sea level, or whatever it is), they were drenched in sweat and had cheeks the color of strawberries. It was HOT. We stuffed ourself with meat, meat, and more meat, then finished it off with Mile High chocolate cake and peach cobbler a la mode. Who's counting calories this week? Not me.
And THEN we drove to Ben's office so we could all admire his new corner office on the top floor of his building. Oooh... It is nice! Too bad his salary didn't improve along with his office when they moved his department last month. :-)
Finally, we drove downtown again, to the Congress Street bridge, to see the largest urban colony of Mexican freetail bats in the world. 1.5 million of these little creatures roost under this bridge over the Colorado River, just south of the Capitol building, and then come flying out all at once in huge black spirals up into the sky over the river. We got there JUST on time, getting to our seat on the grass literally 2 minutes before the bats emerged. It was very cool.
Then home for bedtime for some very tired boys.
It was an awesome day.

Two Bens in the house

It's been fun having Benjamin here. One of my favorite things about being one of the oldest of a bunch of kids, is seeing each of my siblings turn into an adult. Suddenly I have a whole new friend. Sometimes, as a married woman, I do miss the friendship of other males. Ben and I have couples friends, of course, but it's not exactly the same thing. That is why it is so great when my brothers get old enough to really be my friends. I'm looking forward to the same thing when Abraham gets home from his mission in a year.
Benjamin is great with my boys, and has been so helpful. I really wish I had a full-time assistant, it is so nice. He helped Brigham with math yesterday, helped Joseph with his piano theory today, listened to "Bass Mechanic" about 45 times with Moses this evening while I took the big boys to piano lessons (that's his current favorite song-- a couple of weeks ago it was "Duel of the Fates" from Star Wars), and has provided Ben and I some quality adult conversation. I've been quizzing him on his methodical, scientific efforts in finding a wife (I'm kidding, I just like to tease him), and probably scaring him off of ever wanting to have kids (again, I'm kidding, he will be a great dad, my boys like him better than me).
I'm not-so-subtly trying to nudge him toward possibly coming to Texas after he graduates. :-)
In this effort, we've been trying to do some fun Austin stuff. We went to Barton Springs today (but didn't swim-- I really wished the boys had brought their swimming suits when we got there, it was so hot!), and then toured the Capitol building where Benjamin had the pleasure of physically removing a kicking and screaming 5 1/2 year old from the gift shop when he had a complete melt-down over not being allowed to buy a $6 Texas Wallet (he doesn't even have any money to buy the wallet, let alone any money to put in it!), and then went to Rudy's for a late lunch, where the same 5 1/2 year old announced that Rudy's was his new favorite restaurant (better than Burger King!!!!!), just minutes after whining and complaining that he HATES Rudy's it's the WORST restaurant in the WORLD. (Think someone hasn't adjusted to Central time after being in California for 2 weeks??) The boys have been through the Capitol building several times now, and it was fun to see them kind of giving Benjamin the tour themselves!
Tomorrow morning we're going to see the Texas Propaganda Movie at the IMAX theater at the Texas History Museum (it's not really called the Texas propaganda movie, but that's essentially what it is, I promise if you come see it you'll be all choked up and ready to pack your house up to move to Texas by the time the closing credits come rolling down), and then to Mount Bonnel to see the views of downtown and the 360 bridge over the Colorado River, then to County Line for dinner and catching turtles from the lake, and then hopefully to see the bats fly out from under Congress bridge.
Friday is the boys' birthday party and Benjamin will be here to help me shop for that in the morning, and then help Ben wrangle the kids in the evening.
I feel like a bit of a loser with the boys' party. They haven't had a birthday party since they turned 5. And that one was an awesome party, pirate themed, on the beach in Miami, with a whole bunch of kids. They got nothin' last year or the year before. And this year, we're just doing a backyard swim party. No theme, no games, at least, nothing that I've planned yet. I didn't even make any cool invitations, I just sent emails out to the boys' moms. AND, since it's the last weekend before school starts, I think there are several people out of town on last-hurrah vacations. So only 4 other boys are showing up. I think Brigham and Joseph probably won't care, but I am feeling major guilt for not making more of an effort to cultivate outside friendships over this past year. We have a few homeschooling friends, and a few church friends, but I've done a totally lousy job in having friends come over, and in maintaining their friendships from elementary school. I feel awful. I'm really going to do better this year. Next year they will have an AWESOME party with TONS of friends. Probably not, but I can tell myself that anyway. I guess these are the pitfalls of homeschooling.
Anyway, I'm enjoying my last couple of days of having 2 seven year olds. Time goes way too fast.

Last MRI for 11 months

Left at 3:30 for Houston. Arrived at 6:45. Was in the MRI machine by 7:45, out by 9:00, home by 12:20. A lot of Swedish Fish and Good-n-Plenties eaten on the long, dark drive home.
Very tired. Must go to sleep now.

Diving board!

Today was our last full day in CA. Our flight leaves tomorrow at 1:00. So it was also the last chance for the boys to swim in my family's pool. It has a diving board! I'd been trying to convince Joseph to jump off the diving board all week, and he finally did it today. He was so brave! I got a picture of him in mid air and the expression on his face is priceless.
Brigham wouldn't try the diving board, but kayaked around the pool in my dad's home-made collapsible kayak. Mosey flitted in and out from the pool to the hammock and back. Fun times for little boys.
So tomorrow morning it is time to pack up and head home, back to real life and responsibilities. I hate that. :-)

Home but not home

After spending all of last week childfree, I flew out to LA last Saturday and have spent the past few days at my childhood home with my boys.
First of all, my week last week was pretty good! Ben and I got our new french doors sanded and stained and varnished and they look great! I will not miss that horrid sliding glass door.
I also spent a lot of hours working on a scrapbook. I don't do real scrapbooks, not with pretty paper and embellishments and themes and all that. I'm not creative enough and I take WAAAY to many pictures and can't decide which ones not to include, so I just include all of them. So my scrapbooks are basically a whole bunch of pictures, cut and cropped and glued onto the paper with journaling to say what was happening. I did ones for each of my twins for their first 2 years of life, one for Mosey's first year, and none since then. Well, my boys have been begging me to make more, and it did seem kind of weird that as picture-happy as I am, I have almost no pictures printed.
Anyway, I got 6 months taken care of last week. Only 60 more until I'm caught up. :-)
As I was working on this, I went back to read a bunch of the letters I wrote during that time (before the blog I wrote emails home as my journal), and got really sentimental. And freaked out by how many things I had forgotten. I used to write every single day. It's not interesting blog reading, but I think I'm going to go back to that style because I really loved reading about those days and I really don't want to let the experiences we're having now just disappear into the ether because my memory is so crummy. There are a bazillion blogs out there that are a million times more funny and clever and beautiful than mine, and I just don't care to compete with that, and I'd rather just remember my life anyway. I hesitate to post on my blog when I don't have pictures. So I end up not writing about certain things because I don't have a picture, or the pictures I took are not ready to post, or whatever. That's dumb. So anyway, I doubt I'll update every day, but I am going to try to go back to my daily life chronicles, boring as they may be.
This week has been fun! It was awesome to see my boys Monday morning. They were waiting for me at the baggage claim when I came wheeling over to them, and they all came running. That is such a mommy-rush, to see your babies running to you. They all looked big and tall! And they all wanted to talk to me at the same time, and it's sort of been that way ever since. :-)
Brigham very proudly showed me his certificate he got at the end of Grandma camp. "Practically perfect in every way." Which he is.
It was actually really awesome having Joseph away, not because he was gone, but because for the first time in a long time, he actually became really talkative on the phone. Last year when I was in the hospital and I'd talk to him, it was a little like pulling teeth. He'd either just say silly stuff, or say "nothing" when I asked him what was going on. But last week, HE called ME a few times, and talked and talked, so excited to tell me everything. It was so awesome. This past year has been rough on Joseph. But the last few months I think he's been coming out of whatever the trouble has been, and it's been so wonderful. I've worried about him so much. But my mom told me what a good, obedient, friendly, cooperative, peacemaking boy he was while I was gone, and I almost can't believe it. I hope it lasts!
Mosey is so cute, and he's wanted to sit right next to me at every meal and snuggle up next to me on the couch, and tell me about everything.
So this week we've mostly just hung out at home, but we've done a few things as well. We went to the Norton Simon Museum yesterday, which is an art museum in Pasadena with the largest collection of Degas works of any museum. I wasn't sure how my boys would do in an art museum, but Brigham LOVED it. (Ok, I was pretty sure he would). Joseph liked it for a while, and then was ready to go. Mosey lasted a little longer than Joseph. But over all I was impressed with how they did. When my mom mentioned that they all deserved a treat after the museum, Brigham said, "I don't need a treat. Going to the museum was a treat for me!" Where does this kid come from?? He's way too good to be mine. :-)
My mom and I went to see Julie and Julia last night which was great. I loved it and now I want to learn to cook French food.
Today the boys and I and my mom took a tour of JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) here in La Canada. This was perfect as the boys and I are just about finished with our Space unit we've been studying this summer. JPL is the place that has planned and made and been in charge of all the spacecraft that have gone up to explore the various planets. My mom has a friend who works there and she gave us a personal tour which was amazing. We went through the museum they have their with scale models of a bunch of different space craft, then a movie about the history of JPL, and then our personal tour. The boys got to see Mission Control, the Spacecraft Assembly building (where everyone has to wear gloves and hair nets and masks and coveralls to keep every speck of dust out, and the machine room (more like warehouse) where all the tiny precision pieces are made for the spacecraft. It was an awesome tour, although really hard with my wheelchair. JPL is built up in the foothills, and is really not wheelchair accessible. We had to go up and down hills, around buildings because everywhere is mostly connected by stairways. My mom and her friend helped to push me up the hills, and my arms are really sore now. But the boys had a great time and spent the rest of the afternoon drawing pictures of space ships and building the model space shuttle and eating the freeze dried astronaut ice cream that my mom's friend gave us. She was totally generous. I let the boys pick out some souvenirs and when I went up to pay, she took them right from my hands and paid for them herself. Sooooo nice.
I also raided my parents' bookshelves today and I'm bringing home about 30 books that my boys are ready for. My parents have thousands of books (no exaggeration), including hundreds of really great children's books. It's so exciting to me to see my boys reading and loving the books that I read and loved as a kid. Especially Joseph, he's my book worm.
So that's our week so far. We go home Saturday morning, so one more day at "home" before we go home. The boys are ready to get back, but I'm not! As soon as we get back home, we need to get back into our full-time school schedule. Which will be good but exhausting. At about the time most other parents are getting ready to get some of their own time back, with their kids going back to school, I'm about to not have ANY time again! It's worth it, though, and I'm excited about this coming year.
OK, bed time for me. My dad just came in from his soccer game. My dad is 60 years old and is a star on his over-40 soccer team. They came in 2nd in their league this past season, which is pretty great considering soccer is arguably the most popular sport these days in Southern California. When I saw him on Monday, he had this enormous lump over his left eye, and the worst black eye I've ever seen. An injury from a soccer game he played on Saturday with another team he's on, an all-ages team in which he got headed by an over-enthusiastic high schooler and was lucky not to get a concussion. Yep, that's my dad. The son of my 90-next-week grandfather who recovered from a brain-bleed from a 4-wheeling accident last Thanksgiving. Probably the only 89-year-old out there gallivanting in the Sanpete County mountains on a 4-wheeler. :-)

Quiet, quiet house

I am sitting alone in my house, nothing but the sound of my clicking keyboard to keep me company (how's that for alliteration!).
My boys left Saturday morning for a week at "Grandma Camp."
It is the first time in my life as a mother that I have spent a night at home without my boys (the hospital doesn't count).
My baby sister Eva, 15 years old now, came for the week last week to be my assistant, and then flew with the boys to my mom's house in LA on Saturday. The boys were SO excited, just giddy the night before, to the point where I doubted they would fall asleep! They were so worried about oversleeping, they brought an alarm clock upstairs, and then woke up an hour earlier than they needed to. :-)
They were excited and eager to get onto that plane, but I admit to not having the same feelings. It made my stomach sink to see my 3 boys disappearing down the jet-bridge to the plane. Ben and I waited by the window until the plane taxied away and then we went home to an awfully quiet house.
We celebrated our freedom by going to eat at the Melting Pot that night (very good, and veeeeeery expensive), and taking a long afternoon nap after church on Sunday.
This week I'm trying to get a bunch of projects done that have been piling up. We'll see how far I get.
My boys are having the time of their lives at my mom's house. Barbecues, swimming in the backyard pool, trips to the beach, camping up in the mountains, all sorts of fun.
I'll be flying out to LA on Monday morning to spend a few days in California, before flying home with the boys on the 15th.