Oh yeah, there are boys in the house, too...

Now that I have finally gotten back to blogging, I have been so absorbed in getting Miss Bean's art class posted and up to date, that I haven't said anything about those two boys that live with us!  We have all been keeping busy with classes and interests.

I posted earlier about fencing.  Miss Bean quit fencing at the end of March, but Bug has been going strong.  He loves it and is raring to go every Tuesday and Thursday.  I had wondered if twice a week would get to be too much, but I think he would be tickled if he could go seven days a week.  Most practices are doing drills and practice bouts that give everyone a chance to both fence and referee for each other.  For a while he was thrilled just to get a touch in a bout now and then, but in the last couple of weeks he has won several one-touch bouts.  It is great fun for me seeing him gaining skills and confidence and getting some nice compliments from the coach.

He is also very active playing Minecraft.  We finally got the version for the computer in February and all three kids are having a blast with it.  I enjoy seeing him learning about computers, solving problems, and collaborating with his siblings while building worlds.  As he starts working with friends, I imagine he may be designing maps and mods and all kinds of stuff.

Another interest of his that, while not up on his radar constantly, has been sneaking in here and there is Mythology.  A while ago we read Edith Hamilton's Mythology as a bedtime read.  It was a little bit dense for him to be reading right now (I used it as a textbook for two classes: one in high school and one in college), but reading it aloud in small doses, he enjoyed it a lot and we read with the iPad close at hand so we could look things up if we needed.  Recently, we started reading the Iliad.  It started out like some of our other bedtime reading with me reading aloud, but in the last couple of weeks, he decided that he wanted to read some of it aloud, too.  So, we take turns, alternating pages, each night.  We're about halfway through and are planning on tackling the Odyssey next.

Beeb is still small enough that most of his "work" looks like playing, but he has been trying out things too.  He started tumbling and trampoline class after the first of year and seems to be having a good time.  Miss Bean has joined him since she decided to stop fencing.  He continues to love turtles and bugs and playing on the computer or video games with his older siblings.

One thing that he has been consistently interested in recently is playing the accordion.  I'm not entirely sure where he came up with the idea (not that it matters), but he announced one day that he wants to do it.  Since then, he reminds me periodically that he still wants to play the accordion.  In April, our public library had a nice little accordion recital that he and I attended.  He was completely enchanted by the music from the start, but started getting ants in his pants when the performer was talking between numbers.  While he was pretty fidgety during the second half-hour (the whole recital was about an hour), he still managed to mind his manners until the end.  We got to look at the accordion close-up at the end and he is still gung-ho to play.  We'll have to look into a student-sized instrument though as we learned that the accordion that was being played at the recital weighs about five pounds more than Beeb does.  Meanwhile, I got the iPod he uses set up with Pandora stations for zydeco and polka, both of which have accordion, so he can listen when he wants to.

Other than her art class, Bean started taking piano last fall.  She is a bit lukewarm about lessons as playing piano doesn't come as naturally to her as drawing and painting does.  She has also been taking tumbling with Beeb this session.  While she mostly enjoyed fencing while she was doing it, she was at a disadvantage to Bug as she just isn't as physically mature and coordinated since she is two years younger.  She was a hard worker and doing her best, but it just wasn't coming along as naturally or as easily as it was for Bug and was starting to get frustrating for her.  She can try again in a couple of years if she feels like it or maybe she'll decide that it just isn't her cup of tea.