tired...

I'm tired.
We've had a ridiculous amount of rain in the last 3 days.  So much rain, such heavy downpours, that it actually has kept me up the past two nights.
Also, I must be getting old.  When I wake up in the night, I can't get back to sleep.  I never used to have this problem!
But, I've been so good about getting up at 6:30 AM every morning so we can be ready for breakfast by 7:00.  Sometimes I despair because of my lack of discipline.  So it's good to know I can pull it out when I put my mind to it.  Now I just need to put my mind to getting in bed before midnight!  Why is it there is so much to get done at night after the boys get in bed?  I'm not even wasting my time blogging (well, except for right now, anyway), as evidenced by my sporadic posting.  And I took draconian measures with my Google Reader subscriptions.  I pared down my daily blog-stalking pretty drastically.  I doubt I spend 10 minutes a day these days.
Still, I guess work expands to fill the time allotted, right?
School is going well so far.  Except for a minor melt-down by Mosey this morning when I tried to help him learn a better way to grip the pencil...  He didn't want to listen to me, and ended up in tears screaming about how his hand hurt when he held the pencil.  Believe me, his hand did NOT hurt, and he was just tantruming.  We let it go until after lunch, and then magically he was happy and cooperative, and his hand stopped hurting.  Oh, the drama.
Our Math-U-See stuff came yesterday afternoon.  It was like Christmas, opening up the big box and pulling everything out.  I think I like it!  The guy who created the program also introduces each lesson on DVD.  He's very engaging, and the kids find it interesting.  Too much so, actually.  While Mosey was watching his DVD clip this morning, Joseph and Brigham both gravitated to the computer to watch Steve Demme teach place values.  :-)  I told Ben I liked the system because he teaches math very much the way I think about math, and would like to teach it to my boys.  But I haven't been using manipulatives, which I think will be very helpful.  Also, one of my boys doesn't like to actually listen to what I'm trying to teach him.  :-)  I'm an extremely visual learner, and when I'm doing math, I tend to "see" things in my head.  It's a little hard to communicate this way of thinking without actually using something the boys can see, so I think this program will work beautifully.
We had our first art co-op this afternoon.  We had 8 kids, ages 6-10 at our house this afternoon.  I'm teaching drawing classes every Wednesday afternoon for the next 4 weeks, and then we'll switch off to another mom teaching something else fine-arts-ish.  I'm excited because I've been meaning to do formal drawing lessons with the boys for ages and ages, but somehow never get around to it.  Now it's scheduled in and there will be no more excuses!  Also, my kids are making other homeschool friends.  I really suck at arranging play dates for the boys.  (Is the term "play date" way too babyish for my big boys?)  The boys play together really well, and never express much of a desire for having friends over or going over to other friends' houses, but I do want them to make other friends.  It so happens that there are 3 other homeschooling families with kids around the same age who all live pretty close by, so I decided to take the bull by the horns and arrange this co-op.
I think the lesson went well today.  I'm using the Monart method, which I love because it's exactly the way I taught myself to draw, only more formalized into lessons.
Tomorrow afternoon Brigham and Mosey start violin lessons!  I'm really hoping it goes well.  I'm not sure where we're going to fit in violin practicing...  But we'll figure it out.  Somehow my mom managed to juggle the schedules of up to 8 kids in the house at a time, each involved in varied and different extra-curriculars.  3 kids should be a cinch, right?
OK, that's enough for tonight.
I'll leave you with a picture of a really priceless note that Mosey wrote for his cousin Jack over the summer while they were at my mom's house.  Jack was in the back yard, playing on our old, somewhat decrepit swing set and play structure, and managed to step on a rusty nail.  My mom took to him urgent care where they x-rayed his foot, took out the nail, and sent him home with antibiotics.  Mosey wrote this note to Jack, completely on his own.

"To Jack From Mosey"

"Dear foot, Did it feel like a cat gived you a kick in the heel?  P.S.  Get better"