Nature Center on Wednesday

This morning's attempt at a variation on breakfast: biscuits (and fried eggs)! Who knew how easy and fast they were to make? Not me, clearly. Now, mine aren't going to win any prizes yet: you can see how little they rose. But they tasted good and I'm going to read up on some tips to make fluffy, layered biscuits.

John has recently learned to sing "Ring Around the Rosey," so now I hear it many times per day from the den as the two children run wildly in circles, then collapse.

In the morning I did some sewing with the kids in the room with me. At one point, John took down a lace wall hanging of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but was being careful with it, so I let him continue. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he hung it on a knob of my desk, so that it was right at his eye level. Then he got on his knees and began praying! He called over his sister and taught Mary how to pray to her patron saint. Well, this mama's heart could have burst. This went on for several minutes while I continued sewing and spying on the kids.

Today I dragged my exhausted self (after two rough nights with Mary) to Latta Nature Center for a homeschoolers' day in which the three- to six-year-olds were taught about native animals, then led on a short hike. There are a whole series of events for homeschoolers and this was the first that we attended. There were too many cute photos I wanted to take--such as John sitting on his little carpet square or John following in line like ducklings--but all would have included other children in the picture and I try not to post photos of strangers' children on my blog.

When making the "habitat hats," the children were given four habitat cards to color, then paste on to the headband. I noticed that the girls in the group delicately colored in the trees. flowers, and clouds with appropriate colors, while the boys all scribbled randomly across the black-and-white drawings--the only exception being my boy who refused to color his at all, saying he liked them just the way they were.

John did beautifully at learning about habitats, making a "habitat hat," listening to a story, going on a nature hike to find habitats, and then playing a matching game. Mary and I toodled around the edge of the room, looking at various exhibits, then went on the hike with the kids. Afterwards, the kids and I stayed there to eat a snack before driving home.

On our drive home, John spotted a cemetery and begged for me to stop there. He has taken an interest in cemeteries and has asked me to take him to the one at Belmont Abbey about three times now, but I never have because it is half an hour away. So I pulled into the parking lot and told him that I'd drive him past so he could see it. "No, Mama. I want you to stop. I want to pray for the people in the cemetery."

Well, I was exhausted before we'd even left the house, and I was fatigued to the bone now two hours later. But here I've been concocting how I'm going to orchestrate taking the children to a cemetery to pray for the poor souls during November (the month to make sure to do such a thing), and here my child is begging me to do so now. Well, how can a Catholic mother refuse? I pulled into a spot, hauled the kids out of their car seats once again, and off we went. We knelt and prayed for the reposes of souls at quite a few headstones. This made for one very tired but very happy Mama. (And then we ordered pizza take-out for dinner!)

And lest I pridefully think I have too holy of a child, I know that he is still a three-year-old boy. When we got home, I was laying on the bed to rest for a few minutes while the kids played in John's room, and kept running in to visit me. They were playing "swords" and "bad guys" and I heard John telling Mary in a comically loud voice, "Remember to hit Mama when we go in there!" He kept telling her that, then closed them into his bedroom, as if his loud voice wouldn't carry through the door, and he even warned her, "Don't say a word to Mama!" Now, the child knows that one of the cardinal rules of sword-fighting is not actually hitting the person, but he was trying to work around that by using his baby sister as a patsy, to get her to hit Mama. And he also knows that it is a crime in an of itself to teach his impressionable sister to be naughty (this isn't the first time!). As I was listening to him in near-laughter at his pathetic attempt at plotting and secrecy, I thought about how we adult souls are equally as pathetic (and more so) to all-knowing God when we try to break natural law and find some justification and ridiculous excuse for why it is okay for us or won't really hurt anybody. When John and Mary came running in, Mary ready to hit me, I stopped them both and told John I had heard him. He was aghast and said, "But I locked the door!" (so I couldn't hear). I told him that Mama has very good hearing (this is similar to eyes in the back of the head). And the swords were taken away.