Last few days

Run down from the last few days:

Tuesday:  Felt sick from the flu shot, but it resolved  in the evening.  Lessons in the morning/afternoon.  Big boys had Scouts.  Mosey and I went to Walmart.  He bought one of those dog toys that is like a stuffed animal without the stuffing.  He's been on a quest to get a "costume" for Arctie.  When we got home, he had me cut down the belly of the toy so he could dress Arctie (his Arctic fox) in a fox's clothing.  Funny boy.  He gets these ideas in his head and won't rest until they are realized!

Wednesday:  Lessons.  Art class in the afternoon.  It was my last drawing class before we start something new next week.  The boys (and girl) all get along really well which makes me very happy.  My main goal with this co-op was to give the boys time to socialize with other kids besides themselves.  The drawing lessons have had mixed success.  There's a really big difference between 6 year olds and 10 year olds when it comes to dexterity, ability to concentrate, and general interest in learning drawing techniques.  I think the older kids really did learn some things, and the younger kids had fun, so I'm happy. 
After art, Joseph had swimming lessons.  He did not (not, not, not!) want to go.  I made him go, and when we got there, he would not (not, not, not!) get in the water.  I made him get in the water, but when he did he would not (not, not, not!) swim, and there wasn't anything I could do about that.  Luckily Ben was literally driving right by the pool when I called him for advice, and he and I traded places.  I took Mosey to soccer practice, and he stayed with Joseph.  Ben did brilliantly, in my opinion.  Joseph was saying the water was too cold for him to swim.  The water was the same temperature it's always been, but the air outside has been cooling down a bit, so it felt colder.  Still, all the other little kids were doing fine.  I hate these situations-- Joseph made a commitment, we talked it over a lot, he agreed to finish out the month, and he did fine at the last lesson.  But on this day, he did not want to cooperate.  What do I do?  Do I give in?  I don't feel  strongly about swimming lessons.  It's totally fine with me if he quits.  But he needs to honor commitments he has made (which was to finish one month of twice a week lessons), and when there is no pain or injury or unkindness going on, I don't think it is good to give in.  I told him he could get out of the water and come home, but then he'd need to go to bed as soon as we got home (it was around 6:00 PM).  But I didn't feel good about the threat, or about letting him go home scot-free, or about insisting, no matter what, that he finish the lesson.  I didn't feel good about anything, I just felt like a jerk.  I was happy to let Ben figure it out.  So, Ben let him get out of the pool, but then he drove him straight to the El Salido pool which was open for every day swimming.  Ben gave him his own private swim lesson for 2 hours (!).  Ben had an Elders' Quorum meeting that night which he called and backed out of in order to take care of Joseph.  I thought that was the perfect solution.  Joseph had a swimming lesson (and a much more effective one than he would have had at his normal lessons), time to spend with his dad, and he was able to feel like his desires were being considered and not completely ignored.  Ben is a really good dad.
Meanwhile I took Mosey to his first soccer practice.  It was fun to watch him run around the field.  It's amazing how much he has matured since last year.  On the way home we stopped to buy him an ice cream cone at McDonalds (love those 50 cent cones!).  When we came home, Joseph still wasn't back, but when he did come back, he was wet and tired, but happy.  And I was very happy.
Thursday:  Morning/afternoon lessons.  Piano lessons at 3:00, then straight to violin lessons at 5:00.  Brigham is coming right along on the violin.  He has a really good ear for pitch.  Mosey is doing well, too, but at only 6 years old, and with only a couple of months of mommy instruction on the piano, he doesn't pick it up quite as quickly as Brigham.  He is enjoying it though.  Honestly, I think one of his biggest draws toward playing the violin is the English Cocker Spaniel at his teacher's apartment/studio.  Dusty is a really fun dog and Mosey loves him and can't wait to go to lessons so he can play with him.  After violin, we drove down to Ben's office where he took the boys to go to help the Elders Quorum with a move, and I went to my Stake Auxiliary training.  I walked into the church feeling horribly self-conscious in my jeans and T-shirt (I hadn't been home since 2:45 in the afternoon!)...  I was happy for President Monson's talk last weekend about not judging on appearances.  :-)  Came home at 9:15 just after Ben and the boys got home.  It was a late night for the boys.
Friday:  Music practicing and reading in the morning.  We drove to the library and then to HEB to buy fruit and cheese and crackers for lunch, and then down to the Capitol building.  We just started a new science section-- Earth Science.  We finished reading the section on minerals, and I wanted to go buy some local Texas minerals so we could do some of the mineral classification tests.  The Capitol building gift shop was the only place I knew of that had some, so down we went.  The boys still love the Capitol building.  They had to help push me up the hill getting to the Capitol, and I'm sure we got some looks.  :-)  We made it to the gift shop, and came away with 6 different Texas minerals and a few other choice items from the gift shop.  Mosey wiped out his savings with a copper star-shaped Texas Rangers sherriff's pin.  Brigham got a wooden spinning top (the boys discovered the jacks in our marble box this week, and have been driving me crazy with spinning them everywhere and all the time).  Joseph got one of those plastic thingies that is filled with some kind of clear fluid-- maybe mineral oil?, with some denser colored fluid (red and blue) that drips from a reservoir at the top, down a series of plastic ramps, and then collects in a reservoir at the bottom.  After it all drips down, you turn it over and start it again.  We went on a whirl wind tour of the building, going up to the 4th floor so we could all feel brave and look down from the balcony railing to the rotunda floor four stories below, peeking into the Senate room, and then going out the front doors to look across the Capitol grounds and down Congress street all the way down to the river.
Then we had to skedaddle back to the parking garage to race all the way back up to Leander for horseback riding lessons.  The boys' previous teacher just left to teach at another stable up in Georgetown which is too far for us, so we have yet another teacher.  I really like this teacher, though, and I hope she'll stick around!  We pay for an hour lesson, but she kept them for almost an hour and a half which I thought was really generous.
Finally, we were home by 6:00 PM.  Just in time for Brigham and Joseph to eat something, and get changed for basketball.  Brigham was not at all happy to learn that he had to get ready for basketball.  He really needs free time.  But he's a trooper and grudgingly got ready to go.  Ben took them up to the sports center and I stayed home with Mosey.  We spent 35 minutes working on his story, "Arctie the Warrior" (I'm his scribe), and then looked up Halloween costumes online.  He's going to be a pirate which makes me happy.  It's a lot less sewing-intensive than his wolf costume last year.  We forgot about the water I had put on to boil for the Ramen noodles he wanted for dinner until close to an hour later when Mosey said, "What about my noodles, mom?"  Whoops!  All the water had completely boiled away, and the pot was so hot it sputtered and steamed for a couple of minutes after putting it under cold water.  Joseph and Brigham came home (they like basketball!  Yay!  It's an indoor sport, and if they get into it, I'll actually be able to go to their games!), we read a little more "Little House in the Big Woods," played with helium balloons, watched about 30 seconds of the BYU football game before concluding that we *didn't* want to watch the rest of it (and reconfirmed our fair-weather fan status for BYU sports), and went to bed!  (Or at least, everyone else did and I stayed up to type this entry and do another load of laundry).

I'm excited for conference tomorrow!