04/17/12

1.  Scouts was this afternoon.  Phew!!  7 (well 9 if you count my big boys) rowdy boys are a lot to handle.  We're working on getting ready for a play we're doing at our pack meeting next Tuesday.  We're doing Daniel and the Lion's Den.  We made scenery and lion masks today which ended up being bigger projects than I anticipated.  I must keep reminding myself to get more stuff prepared in advance.  I always underestimate the amount of work a project will take.  Or overestimate the attention span of 8 year old boys.  :-)  By the end of the afternoon there was crayon on the floor, glue all over the table, and little bits of paper bag "fringe" (for the lion manes) all over everything else.  After it was over, my co-leader Andrea commented that the boys are pretty much motivated only by getting to go outside to play.  Little girls would be so different!  I'm sure they'd be happy as clams sitting and cutting and stapling and coloring and gluing jewels and chatting.  Not boys.  They just want to finish everything as fast as they can so they can go outside and jump on the trampoline, swing on the disc swing, ride scooters on the basketball court, and eat popsicles.

2.  I had an interesting discussion with Brigham and Joseph this evening as we were driving to scouts (their webelos meetings are on Tuesday nights, after our afternoon Wolf/Bear den meeting).  I was trying to describe the difference between "coaching" and "bossing."  There are some key differences!  Some of my boys don't like being told what to do, especially when it involves schoolwork and practicing and chores.  As we were talking about it, one of my boys said, "I don't like it when you boss me!"  The thing is, I don't think of it as "bossing," and that's not how I'm trying to come across.  I want to be their coach!  I happen to be a very good practicing coach.  I just am.  I so much would rather be my boys coach than their boss!  So, from my point of view, "bossing" is when you are dictating to a person who is doing something for *you.*  So I can definitely be "bossing" when I'm telling my boys how to vacuum, because they're doing it to help me out.  Well, to help the family out, but in their eyes it is to help me out.  But with practicing (or math or writing or whatever), they're not doing it to help *me.*  I already know how to do math and how to play the piano and violin.  They're practicing for *them.*  And I'm their coach, helping them to become better at something for them.  A good coach can be like adding a gear to a system.  The same number of revolutions of the crank can result in far greater movement when a second gear is added.  A coach can be the same way-- the same amount of time and effort (45 minutes at the piano, for instance) can yield so much more progress when a good coach is added to the system.  But in order to get any benefit, the gear has to actually engage.  The athlete has to listen to the coach.  And ultimately, I think, it is more fun and more satisfying to spend 45 minutes at the piano making real progress, than spending 45 minutes messing around, playing through things lackadaisically, wondering what to do next, and otherwise simply trying to pass the time. 
So, what can I do to come across more as a coach than a boss?

3,  While the big boys and I were at scouts, Mosey and Ben cleaned up the back patio.  We finally got ride of the ugly, holey, mangy old couch that's been out there for the past 5 years.  It was a very comfortable couch, but it had lived it's life (recently the boys discovered an opossum nesting underneath it which is just gross).  So on Saturday Ben hauled it off the patio and over to the side of the yard to await our next bulk trash day.  Tonight Mosey and Ben swept off the patio, cleaned out the grill, and dusted off and cleaned the other couch and chair (our old leather set) that are out there.  They are in amazingly good shape after having been out in the weather (under the patio roof, but still).  Ben set up a fan right outside the door, to drive away the mosquitoes that tend to hang out there waiting a chance to get inside the house.  It's downright pleasant out there now!  We hopefully still have a few more weeks of tolerable weather before the furnace descends upon us once again, and I'd like to take advantage of it.  Next up: transforming the mosquito-breeding swamp formerly known as our pool into a remotely inviting place.