Dragon Day

Happy Dragon Day!
When I got up this morning and came out to the living room, I saw the upstairs balcony draped with a long stretch of sheer white fabric, bunting-style.
"Happy Dragon Day, Mom!" Brigham calls out to me.
The boys have designated March 15-19 as "Dragon Days."  They told me that Dragon Days always start on the Ides of March and go on for 5 days.  You mean, you didn't know about that?  :-) 
They tried to convince me that this important holiday meant that they only had half-lessons.  And THEN they tried to convince me that since the public schools are out on spring break this week, they should only have half-lessons anyway, and so with Dragon Days on top of that, they should have no lessons at all!  Hmmm.  I don't think so.  We're going away for a week in April, but they don't seem to make the connection that *that* is going to be our spring break...
Anyway, in celebration of Dragon Days, the dragons came and sat at the kitchen table while we ate breakfast, had scripture study, and went on with our day.  Brigham fed his dragons little pieces of pepperoni as a special treat.  :-)
When Ben came home this evening we were still trying to finish lessons (it was a long day).  We read a whole bunch of our history book today-- going over World War I and the Bolshevik revolution.  Interesting stuff, and the boys didn't want me to stop reading.  Unfortunately, all of the reading comes with outlines and writing assignments that the boys also have to finish, and they weren't quite as enthusiastic about that...  This is where I have to be careful about not comparing them to how I was as a child.  Sometimes I get so frustrated because they are not motivated by the same things as I was.  There are lots of gender differences, and they are also different people.  But it is internally frustrating to me when I can't figure out how to motivate them to do the quality of work that I expect from them.  I was a perfectionist, and I know I spent too much time trying to make even unimportant assignments perfect.  I don't need *everything* perfect, but I'd like to see them try sometimes at least!  Brigham is also a perfectionist, but, somehow, it doesn't extend to history writing assignments.  :-)  I don't want them to be satisfied doing the bare minimum.  I want them to look back on the work they've done and be proud of it.  But they seem to want to do it as quickly and easily as possible...
I get discouraged and wonder what I am doing wrong.
But then they'll have days like last Friday when the boys, independently and with no prompting from me (spearheaded by Joseph, I believe), worked together to create an edition of the "Global Times" complete with a little article about an earthquake in Calcutta causing destruction "from Madras all the way down to Sri Lanka," with "Hyderabad at the end of the flood line."  Another headline for an article read, "Huge fire at Beijing: City totaled."  The edition ended with an article about terrorists destroying the Great Wall of China, and the CIA discovering a plot to destroy the Kremlin-- apparently targeting the wonders of the world.
This is creative, and showed a knowledge of geography, journalistic writing-style, and even the names of political leaders (President Jintao of China being referenced).
So, I know they have it in them.  Why can't that translate into pride in the work *I* assign them?

Well, here's a picture to close with-- Mosey showing me his "face fingers."  His violin teacher and I are trying to train him to place his fingers more correctly on the fingerboard.  My idea was to draw faces on his fingers and tell him to "smash the faces in" as he plays the notes.  He tends to curl his fingers up and play on the very tips of his fingers.  He seemed to think smashing the faces in was pretty funny, and I think Mosey's pretty cute with his mouth full of skewampus teeth, adult teeth growing in among baby teeth that don't want to fall out.  I'm sensing orthodontist bills in our future.  :-)

See ya!