this week

Some interesting things about this week:

1.  We have a swing in our backyard-- a disk swing on a long rope hung from one of the big live oak trees in our back yard.  We have a step ladder set up next to it, and the boys climb up to the top of the ladder, get on the swing, and then launch themselves off the ladder to swing into the air.  It is really fun!  And Ben had it set up so that it seemed to be very safe.  But on Thursday evening, about 5 minutes before we were supposed to be leaving for music lessons, I heard loud cries from the backyard.  "HELP, HELP!!  I'M NOT KIDDING, HELP ME!"  These are the moments that make a mother's blood run cold.  I wheeled myself as fast as I could to the back door and I saw Mosey making his way toward the house, holding his arm, and tears streaming down his face.  Somehow the knot on the rope untied, and when Mosey jumped off the top of the ladder, he essentially fell straight down and crashed on his left arm and side on the hard gravel below.  He got a pretty bad abrasion on his left elbow that is going to be a pain in the neck because it is right on the joint.  I tried to ask him about what happened, but I think the wind was knocked out of him, and he could hardly catch his breath, finally saying, "Can you ask me about it later?"  We washed it off, and I put a bandage on it, and then I raced Brigham to music lessons with instructions to tell Mosey's teacher that he couldn't come.  Poor Mosey!  But really, it was lucky because he wasn't seriously hurt, and just a few minutes before he fell, all of our art group friends were over, and if it had been one of them that had fallen from the swing, I would have felt so much worse.  I'm not sure Mosey saw it that way at the moment!

2.  Mosey's camera that he got for his birthday has a fun little function-- it can play videos frame by frame forward or backward.  So the last couple of days, the boys have been building great big towers in the playroom, and ten destroying them in fantastic ways while Mosey videotapes.  The resulting movies, forward or backward, are pretty cool.  And I especially love the way the boys have been playing with each other while working on these.  This afternoon, none of the boys were 100% done with school or practicing, but they were having such fun playing together in the playroom, that I could not bear to tear the away from it and so I let them blow off the rest of the day of school (only an hour or so) and I lay down for a nap.  This is the life!

3.  I introduced the boys to "Chin-man," and it has been a huge hit!  Chin-man comes to visit when you draw an eyes and nose upside down on your chin, and then lay down so that other people can see you upside down.  When you start talking, and your brain sees the drawn-on face on the chin, with this huge mouth beneath, it is so, so, SO funny.  I remember a friend of mine doing that in college, and I laughed harder than I think I have ever laughed in my whole life.  So we've spent more than a few minutes drawing faces on each other's chins and taking turns dying of laughter.  :-)  Mosey took some pictures, so I'll have to have him upload them tomorrow.