02/20/12

1.  I gave the boys the day off school today, since RRISD is off for President's Day.  I still made the do their practicing, though.  I'm not *that* nice.  :-)

2.  I failed to inform Mosey that he still had to go to speech this afternoon.  Actually I thought I had told him.  Brigham and Joseph both knew, so I guess I must have told the boys about it when Mosey wasn't in the room.  So when I told Mosey it was time to get in the car to go to speech, he completely fell apart.  "But it's a day off of school, mom!!!"  Yes, a day off of *school,* not a day off of everything.  Oh, there were tears and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  He collapsed in my bathtub (we were in my bathroom finishing up cello (the bathroom is our cello-practicing-location-of-choice) just before we had to go to speech) and refused to get out.  I broke my no-yelling-rule and he finally got in the car and we headed downtown.  He was still quite unhappy when we got down to UT.  As I dropped him off, I tried to remind him to "leave his grumpiness outside the door."  He was welcome to pick it back up on the way out, but he needed to cool it in his session.  He must have been at least partially successful, because he was happy enough when he got out 45 minutes later.  He even got two prizes from the prize box!  I felt pretty rotten, though.  Despite what my kids may thing, I really, really do hate to see them cry.  :-(

3.  That wasn't Mosey's only emotional outburst today.  He also had a moment or two during piano practicing.  He has a tendency (and he's not alone amongst my boys in this tendency) to be very fatalistic, and when he can't play a tricky section right the first time, he dramatically throws his hands up into the air, heaves a giant sigh and says, "I can't do it!  I'll never be able to do it!"  And then strongly resists any encouragement to actually *practice* the tricky section.  So we had a long-ish talk about being a "cheerleader" or a "boo-leader" for yourself.  When he tells himself, "I can't do it!  I'll never be able to do it!  It's too hard!" he's being a boo-leader.  And who wants a boo-leader hanging around?  Boo-leaders would get kicked out of the football stadium!  Instead, he needs to be his own best cheerleader.  "I can do it!  I bet next time it'll be perfect!  Nothing's too hard for me!"  I told him that the words we say to ourselves are way more powerful than anything anyone else can say to us.  Boo-leaders have got no place inside our heads.  We need to kick them out!  Only cheerleaders around here!
I hope it helps.  We'll see.  I may have to track down some cheerleading pom-poms to shake around whenever my boys start being boo-leaders.  They'd love that.  :-)