01/15/2013

1.  We've had two pretty good days of school!  All the practicing has been done except Mosey's cello, but he hasn't had a lesson yet, so it's not too big a deal this week.  I need to find a time to practice with him.  I'm still so torn about practicing with the boys.  I was at the point of having them practice almost all on their own (especially the twins), but then I started reading "Helping Parents Practice," written by a Suzuki violin instructor, and I feel like I still need to practice with them...  I do know that if I am going to practice with them, I need to do better about making it be positive.  Brigham is my most willing practicer.  He almost never gives me a hard time about actually sitting down to practice.  Thank goodness I have at least one like that!  But I don't do a very good job keeping it positive with him all the time.  He is very good, but after he plays something, I tend to jump right into what he needs to do or work on for the next time through, instead of really making a point to tell him something good every time.  It's hard to do that because I'm mostly focused on getting the practicing done fast.  :-)  But I need to, because he hears my constructive criticisms too often as just plain criticism.

2.  We were supposed to have scouts this afternoon, but when Mosey and I got in the car to go, I turned the ignition and nothing happened.  Shoot!  I called a few people but no one was home, and then I tried to pop the hood and couldn't even get that up (it sticks sometimes), so Mosey and I called it a wash and stayed home.  Instead we spent the next two hours working on arrow point electives.  It was fun!  Mosey is a cool kid.

2.  The kittens are getting bigger.  It's amazing how fast they grow.  They eat all the time.  They like to come sit on my lap in the wheelchair and let me wheel all over the house with them.  They also love to chase the mouse on the computer screen.  We have a computer connected to a projector in the living room, and they'll get up on the couch against the wall where we project the computer screen and jump around trying to catch the mouse.  So cute.

3.  Joseph is my biggest animal lover, as he has been since he was born.  He loves to talk baby-talk to Sandy, saying, "Sundy-Wundy" (his nickname for her) "is the bestest duggie in the whole world!", among other sweet nothings which he is very good at making up.  It is sweet.  At least, it is sweet until the 30th time during the day when he is insisting that I join in on the Sandy baby-talk.  "Mommy, say something about Sandy!  Say 'Sundy-Wundy.'"  "No, not like that, it has to be like this: 'Sundy-Wundy!'"  It can go on like that for quite a while until he is satisfied with my exact inflection and enthusiasm when talking to Sandy.  :-)

4.   A few days ago when I was driving Mosey to Tae Kwon Do, he asked me, "Mom, do you think you are happier than you would be if you didn't have MS?"  It took me a bit off guard.  I told him I couldn't say, because I don't know what I would have been like otherwise.  I wish I could have learned all the lessons I've learned from MS without having to have it!  But, I guess if I had to make a choice, I probably am happier having had it.  The only thing that makes me uncertain is that if I hadn't had MS I definitely would have had more children.  More kids doesn't necessarily make a mother happier, though, I suppose.  Anyway, I thought that was a pretty deep question from my boy.

5.  A couple of weeks ago Joseph took some pictures of me.  Since I'm always taking the pictures, I don't end up in many of them.  It's taken me a few weeks to actually go through them.  He did a good job!  Here are the two I like best.  The lighting was different in both of them and it makes my hair look a lot different.  I think the first one is more true to life.