Blogging while busy

It is ironic that during these days that I am so, so, so busy, my life crammed full of all kinds of everything, that my blog is the most sparse.  Someday my descendants will read this part of my record and assume that everything was so quiet and boring and uneventful that none of it was worth writing down.  Well, descendants of mine (and I realize there is more than a little touch of hubris in assuming that I'll have descendants a) reading this and b) taking time to analyze my life), rest assured that I am VERY busy, and things are quite eventful and unboring, I just don't have time to write every day!
Actually, while things are very busy, a lot of it is pretty repetitious, so it's hard to know what's worth recording.  Maybe I should do a daily rundown of our activities, just to note what we're doing, even without commentary.
I am so busy and so tired by the time I can finally go to bed, that I think I'll just save up everything and write one long blog post at the end of the week.  But it's hard to remember things for that long, and it ends up being too boring.
So, instead of actually writing about my life, I spend 10 minutes waxing (not so) eloquent about how I'm too busy to blog...  :-)
One of my favorite bloggers, The Pioneer Woman, is amazing to me.  She has 4 kids.  She lives out on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.  She does photography.  She cooks.  She wrote a cookbook!  She homeschools.  And every day she comes up with multiple funny, witty, clever blog posts with beautiful pictures that she somehow finds time to take AND edit.  (I take the pictures, but don't have time to edit them.)  I don't know how she does it!
I think I must do some things in slow motion compared to other people.  It seems like that, at least, when I'm up until 1:00 AM finishing laundry or cleaning up the kitchen, or whatever.  Ben says (admiringly) that I must need less sleep than he does.  Maybe I do, but to me it mostly feels like I don't have the luxury of simply stopping what I'm doing and going to bed when I'm tired.  The work doesn't go away, it simply piles up... 

Today was a busy Thursday, even though both piano and violin lessons were canceled for the afternoon.  This morning we did a quick pick-up-the-house before the cleaners came this afternoon.  Then on to lessons.  We didn't finish up until about 3:45 or so.  Then I helped Brigham with violin practicing before taking Joseph to swimming lessons at 4:20.  We got home from swimming at 5:45, and I needed to quickly make dinner for us and for the Whipples whose little boy broke his arm badly today.  I quickly mixed up a batch of brownies, made some rice and beans and bean-and-cheese tortillas (kind of like burritos, just folded over instead of rolled), threw in a bag of grapes, and called it good.  Then we all piled in the van, drove to the Whipples to drop off dinner, and then rushed to the church building for the big boys' pack meeting.  They finished their Wolf and are now Bears.  They also got the conservation badge, 5 silver arrow points, and 1 gold arrow point.  Good job, boys!  Then home again, bed-time routine, bed-time reading, getting myself ready for bed, and here I am.  10:30 PM and I still have 4 baskets of laundry that I am NOT going to fold tonight.  :-)
Commentary for the day:
Mosey was so cute at the pack meeting tonight.  He sat by me and when Brigham and Joseph and Ben went up to the front to get their badges, Mosey put his little arm around my back.  Normally I put my arm around his shoulders, but he beat me to it tonight.  He must have been feeling protective of his mommy.  :-)
Joseph went to his 3rd swimming practice this afternoon.  I think he thought that swimming lessons would really be an hour of playing in the pool, and not an hour of swimming laps and learning strokes.  It is hard work!  He doesn't have much stamina built up yet, and after a couple of laps of free style, he was completely out of breath, and got overwhelmed.  He started crying, and the combination of crying and swimming and trying to breath is not a good one.  I think he got panicked and then really felt like he couldn't breathe.  His coach told him to sit out for a few minutes to catch his breath.  He came over near me and wrapped himself in his towel and tearfully told me he wanted to go home, he didn't want to do swimming anymore.
Well, I already paid for the month, and I had told Joseph if he wanted to do swimming, he needed to commit for at least a month.  And, while I don't believe in forcing a child to be involved in a sport that he hates, I don't want him to quit right off the bat just because it's hard.  Everything is hard at the beginning.  I want him to give it a good shot, and then if he still doesn't like it after a few weeks, fine. 
But more than that, I really want Joseph (and all my boys) to develop that inner sense of toughness.  That inward core of stubborn pride that says, "I will NOT be beaten by this!"  I don't know how to help the boys develop this.  Is it something you are born with, like a competitive nature?  I hope not, because that can be one of the most valuable qualities that helps a person power through difficult times, achieve goals, feel and be motivated by a sense of accomplishment.  I have always had that in me (at least, I think I have).  I'm not a competitive person at all-- just with myself.  But I'm not a quitter.  The harder something is, the more determined I am to show it who's boss!  :-)  Sometimes my innate laziness gets in the way, and I don't achieve what I know I could, but that inward stubbornness at least makes me feel really guilty when that happens. 
But I'm not sure I was born this way.  I can't remember.  Did my parents somehow instill this in me, or is it just an inborn part of my personality?
Can I, and if so, how do I convey this inner toughness to my children?  Do I simply keep trying to find opportunities for them to do hard things, accomplish difficult tasks, have a chance to feel that sense of accomplishment?  Do I push them harder when things get tough and they get discouraged?  If I do that, am I going to turn the situation into a power struggle?  That's the last thing I want.  I don't want them to feel a power struggle with me, I want them to feel it with themselves!  I want them to feel that power struggle with that inward voice that says, "You can't do it; it's too hard; just give up," and beat that. 
I know this is just another manifestation of the same parenting issues that have been plaguing me ever since I had children.
Being a full-time mother is hard for many reasons, but one reason is that there is no other "work product" than your children!  Other forms of work yield tangible, or at least, measurable accomplishments.  Something that you make, or improve, or fix, or figure out, or whatever.  But the only thing motherhood yields is a child.  So in a way, my children are my work product, and a lot of my identity and self esteem is naturally tied to this work product, as it is (I assume) for other workers.  But a child is also a free agent, and my mothering influence is probably not a huge part of what makes a child who he is.  So it's impossible to judge the quality of a mother's work by her work product-- her child.  This is very frustrating!  Not that I care that much how other people judge my mothering (well, I do care somewhat), but how do I judge my own mothering?  How can I evaluate my own work, when I have no control group to which I can compare the effects of my work?
Ah!  Impossible questions, I know.
Anyway, these are the sorts of philosophical quandaries I find myself facing as I sit on the white plastic pool chair observing my boy struggling during swimming lessons.
On a more encouraging note, it was really cute to see Joseph and Brigham getting ready for the pack meeting tonight.  During their last scout activity, the pack leader talked with them about their uniform-- keeping it clean, wearing it correctly, taking pride in appearance.  Tonight, both boys on their own got dressed, tucked in their shirts, put on their neckerchiefs just so, combed their hair (Joseph even used mousse!), and looked perfect gentlemen.
The theme of the pack meeting was "cooperation."  They had 2 activities aimed to get the boys cooperating with each other-- pairing up and linking arms and trying to keep a balloon in the air as they moved across the basketball court, and another with all the boys tied up together, having to move as a group across the court.  They were pretty hilarious to watch, and perhaps more a demonstration of the inability of 8-10 year old boys to cooperate to any measurable extent.  :-)
OK, this is quite enough for tonight.  See, this is why I don't write every day.  Because when I do I have no self-discipline to curb my own output, and I end up spending 30 minutes writing, instead of the 5 minutes I had intended-- 30 minutes that I really can't afford considering the magnitude of my current level of sleep-deprivation.  :-)
So, good night!