Too much living and too little blogging has been going on the past couple of weeks. My weekly letter to my family will have to suffice.
This has been a fast week! Probably because it started out in West Virginia. My visit to Naomi was wonderful. Her baby is so beautiful and Polly is so cute and Naomi is such a good mother. I hate it that we all live so far apart from each other! Dave was amazing and got up at 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday to take me to the airport in Pittsburgh-- an hour and a half drive-- just to turn around and drive another hour and a half and then go to a full day of work at his lab. Thank you, Dave!!
My return home was uneventful. A funny thing happened on the way to see Naomi, though. In the Pittsburgh airport as I was wheeling myself along toward the train to go to the baggage claim, a pretty 20-something year old stopped me and offered me her magazine. "I finished reading it, and I hate to have it go to waste. It's a really good magazine!" I accepted it saying, "I can always use reading material in an airport," and then looked down to see it was Maxim magazine. Wikipedia describes Maxim magazine as such: "Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, sometimes pictured scantily dressed but not fully nude." Gulp.
Anyway, I spent the next few minutes puzzling over what about my physical bearing or aura or whatever made this girl think I was the Maxim magazine-reading-type? :-) (She was really nice-- after she gave me the magazine she said, "By the way, you're really pretty." Which is nice, but hard to know how to respond. I said, "Thanks, so are you!" And she was. And I don't *think* either of us was hitting on the other. :-)) Sadly, I think the magazine found its way into Naomi's kitchen garbage can before I was able to fully peruse the contents. :-)
Anyway, once back in Austin, my friend Stephanie came and picked me up and brought me back home. I couldn't figure out very good arrangements for the boys on Monday and Tuesday (I probably could have, but I didn't try all that hard), so I left them home by themselves! Ben was home by then, of course, and the boys were left with instructions on how to spend their time while he was at work. They did just fine. The house wasn't even that big of a mess when I got home!
We jumped right back into the swing of things with piano practicing and flute lessons. There was just a bit of a panic when, a few minutes before I needed to leave to take Joseph to flute, I realized that my van wasn't here. Ben took it to work, not knowing if he might have to come and get me from the airport, since I hadn't called him with specific arrangements, I just told him I'd get a ride. Anyway, I can't drive his car, of course, because it has no hand-controls. So I called him in a panic and he raced home in time for me to jump in the van and take Joseph to flute, just a few minutes late.
Wednesday was a pretty normal day. Lessons, and then art. Joseph wasn't feeling well, and had a low-grade fever all day. I left him home while the other boys went to art, and I took Joseph's flute downtown for some adjustments (turns out an inexperienced 9-year-old really shouldn't try to clean all the pads and wires and intricacies of a flute...).
Thursday we had lessons in the morning, and then piano and violin lessons in the afternoon, and then a Cub Scout pack meeting in the evening, and a baby shower after that! It was a long day.
Friday was a full day of lessons, since Monday and Tuesday we didn't have any. The boys were actually very good, after some initial resistance from one of them. He started out outright refusing to do his work, and my heart sank with the prospect of another conflict with this child. I'm trying so, so hard to keep from losing it with him. I told him, as I have before, that he either does school here, or he goes to public school. Then I told him he could choose not to do his work, but the next day he would still have to do it, AND he would get an extra big chore to do (I always have to defer my big consequences for a time when Ben is here and can enforce them). Anyway, he ran outside and I thought he was hiding on the roof. Did I ever write about how the boys learned how to climb up on the roof and now that is a favorite hang-out for them? Also the one place in our house and yard that I really, *really* can't get to. :-).
Anyway, I spent the next few minutes puzzling over what about my physical bearing or aura or whatever made this girl think I was the Maxim magazine-reading-type? :-) (She was really nice-- after she gave me the magazine she said, "By the way, you're really pretty." Which is nice, but hard to know how to respond. I said, "Thanks, so are you!" And she was. And I don't *think* either of us was hitting on the other. :-)) Sadly, I think the magazine found its way into Naomi's kitchen garbage can before I was able to fully peruse the contents. :-)
Anyway, once back in Austin, my friend Stephanie came and picked me up and brought me back home. I couldn't figure out very good arrangements for the boys on Monday and Tuesday (I probably could have, but I didn't try all that hard), so I left them home by themselves! Ben was home by then, of course, and the boys were left with instructions on how to spend their time while he was at work. They did just fine. The house wasn't even that big of a mess when I got home!
We jumped right back into the swing of things with piano practicing and flute lessons. There was just a bit of a panic when, a few minutes before I needed to leave to take Joseph to flute, I realized that my van wasn't here. Ben took it to work, not knowing if he might have to come and get me from the airport, since I hadn't called him with specific arrangements, I just told him I'd get a ride. Anyway, I can't drive his car, of course, because it has no hand-controls. So I called him in a panic and he raced home in time for me to jump in the van and take Joseph to flute, just a few minutes late.
Wednesday was a pretty normal day. Lessons, and then art. Joseph wasn't feeling well, and had a low-grade fever all day. I left him home while the other boys went to art, and I took Joseph's flute downtown for some adjustments (turns out an inexperienced 9-year-old really shouldn't try to clean all the pads and wires and intricacies of a flute...).
Thursday we had lessons in the morning, and then piano and violin lessons in the afternoon, and then a Cub Scout pack meeting in the evening, and a baby shower after that! It was a long day.
Friday was a full day of lessons, since Monday and Tuesday we didn't have any. The boys were actually very good, after some initial resistance from one of them. He started out outright refusing to do his work, and my heart sank with the prospect of another conflict with this child. I'm trying so, so hard to keep from losing it with him. I told him, as I have before, that he either does school here, or he goes to public school. Then I told him he could choose not to do his work, but the next day he would still have to do it, AND he would get an extra big chore to do (I always have to defer my big consequences for a time when Ben is here and can enforce them). Anyway, he ran outside and I thought he was hiding on the roof. Did I ever write about how the boys learned how to climb up on the roof and now that is a favorite hang-out for them? Also the one place in our house and yard that I really, *really* can't get to. :-).
Anyway, I was really happy to see him a few minute later actually doing his work. And I didn't even have to lose my temper.
Friday afternoon was horseback riding. Mosey had a tough day. It's so hard for me to know how to help him. I like their teacher, but I have noticed that at times the horse won't be doing what it's supposed to do, and the teacher will ask, "Were you (insert standard instruction here)?" And sometimes the boys actually WERE doing that thing, but the horse still didn't behave. Well, I think this happened on Friday. The horse started going in the wrong direction and the teacher asked Mosey, "Were you looking toward where you want the horse to go?" And Mosey said, "YES, I WAS!" In a not-very-polite voice. I knew he was frustrated with the horse, and frustrated by the implication that he hadn't been doing what he was supposed to have been doing, but still, it's not OK to talk like that to an authority figure. The teacher stopped him and said, "Do you want to try that response again?" (By the way, I like this in a teacher-- I like that she insists on politeness from her students.) Well, Mosey is more than a little bit stubborn. He did NOT want to try that response again, and after a while of going back and forth and the teacher giving him chances to be polite, he got off the horse and his lesson was over.
Ugh. The trouble with Mosey is that he is supremely self-confident. He really sees himself as just as competent as anyone else, including adults. And I feed into this by giving him a lot of responsibility. I send him into a store with money to get something, and he marches right in, as confident as he could possibly be, and I don't think he even realizes that adults look at him a little strangely. It's not that normal for a 7-year-old to be as confident and self-assertive as Mosey is. So he doesn't have a lot of natural deference to adults just because they are adults. This is clearly an area in which I need to work with him. Learning how to appropriately respond to authority figures is extremely important. We did talk on the way home about what happened. I told him that next time he should say, "I thought I was looking where I was going, but maybe I wasn't." That way he can express that he was trying to do what he was supposed to, and thought he was, while not being outright defiant toward the teacher.
I think we need to have some Family Home Evening lessons on this topic...
Saturday of course was General Conference. My boys are big enough now that they actually sat and listened to almost all of it. My favorite parts were listening to Mosey sing loudly during the intermediate hymns. Like I said, he is not at all self-conscious. :-) I was able to get a bunch of work done on a project I'm trying to finish. Between sessions the boys cleaned up the backyard, albeit only after a LOT of moaning and groaning on the part of 1 or 2 of my boys... It's still not perfect, but much better than it was. After the 2nd session, we all went into the front yard and worked on pulling weeds and cutting back dead branches and old growth from the plants along our front walkway. Ben planted a bunch of new plants, and our yard is not quite as embarrassing as it was... It was really nice to work together as a family. The only downside was the reappearance of the stupid, horrible, awful, despicable mosquitoes that are now back in force. I HATE MOSQUITOES!! In the evening, Ben went to priesthood session and the boys and I ate pizza and watched a movie.
Today was more conference, and after the 2nd session we went on a long family walk. It was so nice. I don't get outside much, and it was SO nice to be out there in the fresh air, feeling the breeze on my face, and seeing beautiful parts of our neighborhood where I typically don't go. It made me really miss running, though. :-(
The boys are all upstairs now, presumably asleep. The house is in good shape, and I'm looking forward to the coming week!
Friday afternoon was horseback riding. Mosey had a tough day. It's so hard for me to know how to help him. I like their teacher, but I have noticed that at times the horse won't be doing what it's supposed to do, and the teacher will ask, "Were you (insert standard instruction here)?" And sometimes the boys actually WERE doing that thing, but the horse still didn't behave. Well, I think this happened on Friday. The horse started going in the wrong direction and the teacher asked Mosey, "Were you looking toward where you want the horse to go?" And Mosey said, "YES, I WAS!" In a not-very-polite voice. I knew he was frustrated with the horse, and frustrated by the implication that he hadn't been doing what he was supposed to have been doing, but still, it's not OK to talk like that to an authority figure. The teacher stopped him and said, "Do you want to try that response again?" (By the way, I like this in a teacher-- I like that she insists on politeness from her students.) Well, Mosey is more than a little bit stubborn. He did NOT want to try that response again, and after a while of going back and forth and the teacher giving him chances to be polite, he got off the horse and his lesson was over.
Ugh. The trouble with Mosey is that he is supremely self-confident. He really sees himself as just as competent as anyone else, including adults. And I feed into this by giving him a lot of responsibility. I send him into a store with money to get something, and he marches right in, as confident as he could possibly be, and I don't think he even realizes that adults look at him a little strangely. It's not that normal for a 7-year-old to be as confident and self-assertive as Mosey is. So he doesn't have a lot of natural deference to adults just because they are adults. This is clearly an area in which I need to work with him. Learning how to appropriately respond to authority figures is extremely important. We did talk on the way home about what happened. I told him that next time he should say, "I thought I was looking where I was going, but maybe I wasn't." That way he can express that he was trying to do what he was supposed to, and thought he was, while not being outright defiant toward the teacher.
I think we need to have some Family Home Evening lessons on this topic...
Saturday of course was General Conference. My boys are big enough now that they actually sat and listened to almost all of it. My favorite parts were listening to Mosey sing loudly during the intermediate hymns. Like I said, he is not at all self-conscious. :-) I was able to get a bunch of work done on a project I'm trying to finish. Between sessions the boys cleaned up the backyard, albeit only after a LOT of moaning and groaning on the part of 1 or 2 of my boys... It's still not perfect, but much better than it was. After the 2nd session, we all went into the front yard and worked on pulling weeds and cutting back dead branches and old growth from the plants along our front walkway. Ben planted a bunch of new plants, and our yard is not quite as embarrassing as it was... It was really nice to work together as a family. The only downside was the reappearance of the stupid, horrible, awful, despicable mosquitoes that are now back in force. I HATE MOSQUITOES!! In the evening, Ben went to priesthood session and the boys and I ate pizza and watched a movie.
Today was more conference, and after the 2nd session we went on a long family walk. It was so nice. I don't get outside much, and it was SO nice to be out there in the fresh air, feeling the breeze on my face, and seeing beautiful parts of our neighborhood where I typically don't go. It made me really miss running, though. :-(
The boys are all upstairs now, presumably asleep. The house is in good shape, and I'm looking forward to the coming week!
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