the sleppys

I’m sorry for not having posted in such a long time. I’ve been working on a Christmas/New Year’s entry, but it’s coming around very slowly. We are still home schooling, so that takes up a lot of time.

The three older children are earning money doing their chores. I’m not really sure of how much they are making for each chore, but they seem to be happy taking a few pennies or a nickel and dropping it into their own banks. A couple of weeks ago, Ty earned enough money to buy himself a cheeseburger. Dad took him on some errands, and the final destination was Burger King, where Ty paid for his own burger and asked for a receipt. He is now saving for a brand new toy (after tithing, of course).

On Wednesday, the 15th, Ty lost his third tooth. Kyle pulled it out of his mouth, actually. It was wiggling and wobbling, and it apparently was bothering both Ty and Kyle. So Kyle pulled it out.

We couldn’t get the Tooth Fairy to come by that night because she didn’t have enough notice. She doesn’t bring cash to the Sleppy children. She brings toys, so she needs at least a few hours’ notice. On Thursday night, she traded Ty’s tooth for an Irish “D” tin whistle. It came in a package with an instruction book that contains musical notation and tablature to play popular melodies.

Ty started playing it immediately. I frustrated him when I offered to teach him. He followed the instruction book well enough to learn to play all of the tunes.

On Wednesday, a week after Ty lost his tooth, I started practicing my violin. I asked Ty if he wanted to play with me. We played Mozart’s “Ah, vous dirai-je Maman” several times for practice. The next day, we practiced some more of the same, but I played some harmony on the violin. We also played “Au Claire de la Lune” and a German folk song, both from the instruction book. And today, Friday… well, we haven’t played yet,  but I hope that we can get some practicing done this weekend.

Playing together is helping him with his breathing into the whistle. When he first started learning it, he’d breathe hard to make the sounds, but the whistle plays a higher octave if it’s played that way. It took him a couple of days to get the breathing steady where he wasn’t playing higher octaves. Also, he’s not separating his tones as he was at the beginning. Most tones in the music are quarter notes, and it doesn’t sound too badly if he separates them. He still has to be reminded to hold the half notes, but once he gets warmed up, the longer notes sound pretty good.

Ty sometimes sits around the house and makes up tunes for himself. He doesn’t write them down or bother to remember them.

The Saturday before Mother’s Day, Ty played his first piano recital. His hair was tied back like Daddy’s. He wore a dark blue polo, black jeans, and his WTSHTF boots. As his teacher, I introduced him. He did not seem nervous at all, perhaps because it was his first public performance or because he is just a cool kid. He was the first student to play, which gave him the advantage. Ty walked up to the bench, squirmed a little to get centered, and began playing “The Swing,” a 16 measure piece written by the author of his lesson book. The audience clapped when he finished. He squirmed a little more to get centered to play an adaptation of Carl von Weber’s “Hunting Chorus,” which is in a different key. He did play a little too fast during one of the eighth note slurs, but only his parents and teacher noticed (having heard his practicing for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks). When he got to the ending, he played softer as the music directed with the dynamic notation. And softer. And softer. And he lifted his hands up above his head (to let the audience know that he was finished). He smiled at them, jumped of the bench, and bowed twice — to the left and to the right. He just kind of stood there, watching their watching him. A man motioned him to go over and collect his little music note trophy. Ty looked at it, smiled, and lifted it a little while looking at the audience… in a surprised, humble way. And he sat down.

“I got a flag trophy,” he told the girl who sat another seat over. The boy who sat directly next to him was at the piano, playing his two pieces.

After the recital, Ty saw that his three grandparents were there along with one of his uncles. We had lemonade and chocolate chip cookies with the other participants and their families.

Ty sat at the table and worked on math problems. Kyle and Taylor sat on the couch and read. Talon and Kendall napped. I swept the floor and listened to Glenn Beck on the radio:

“They claim that we’re out to destroy the Earth. They say that all we want to do is kill the Earth. I don’t want to kill the Earth. Do you? Do you want to destroy Planet Earth?”

Ty answered him, “No. You should never kill the Earth.” He looked up at me, “Mommy, only volcanoes want to kill the Earth.”

Dear Birthday Boy,

It was six years ago, a Thursday, that the skies were cloudy, grey, and the air was cool, crisp, like Christmas. I wore one of Dad’s long sleeved tie-dyes to the hospital, not sure which one because he has two dozen. We didn’t know your gender. We had some names picked out. We were excited about our first baby. Twelve and a half hours later, we beheld you. Blue skin, blue face, blue mouth. Screaming as if someone had pissed you off.

This morning, you woke up before we did. You and Kyle started a conversation that was loud enough to tell you two to “SHhh!” You had a good day of adventures and surpsrises. Dad and I got you birthday cards. You received an analog wrist watch that you had to put on immediately. The babies were asleep most of the morning, so you got to play outside in the muggy, hot air with Kyle and Taylor instead of babysitting while I washed diapers.

When Daddy got home, he took the three of you out to take a look at the race cars that are in town. You came home wearing hats from the race team’s sponsor. You watched “Peep and the Big Wide World,” and ate cake for lunch. In fact, you decorated your own cake. It was supposed to be a dinosaur cake, but you didn’t bring me any dinosaurs. There was a donkey, a kangaroo, a pig, and… okay, there was one ankylosaur. You opened up your remaining gifts which were a Lightning McQueen wall clock (you really like to tell time) and a building set toy thing … You made a car out of it with Daddy’s help.

Just this evening, we sat around Daddy’s computer and watched the space shuttle Endeavor launch. A few seconds afterward, we were all outside watching the darn thing in the sky, right between two houses across the street! Bright orange flames from the rocket boosters, it was spectacular. You were excited to see it. Taylor got so excited that she ran too fast down the driveway and fell.

So Happy Birthday, Ty. Tomorrow, we are hosting a get-together, and you’ll see your friends and get to eat cake again. I’d like to add that you didn’t do any homeschooling today.

Love,

Mom