In Which She Did Not Break Her Arm

We experienced drama last night, but the punch line is that Mary did not break her arm. In the afternoon, she fell about five feet out of a tree, not even that high and not her first time. But it was the first time that an hour and a half later, Mary was still crying every time we tried to move or touch her. Grampa Neil had just arrived from California and I had plans to make a celebratory dinner when Daddy took Mary off to Urgent Care. (For my local friends, there is a great new children's Urgent Care that opened up at Blakeney--super clean, friendly staff, no wait!)

Waiting with Winnie-the-Pooh  

Getting her x-ray, which showed no broken bones in her arm, collar bone, or ribs 

The doctors said she has internal contusions. I had thought when Chris was bringing home a girl without any broken bones that I'd feel foolish for our having been so concerned, but I don't. Mary is still so very tender! She won't use her right arm and bursts into tears at being touched or dressed, or trying to climb in or out of a car seat, high chair, or potty. She began crying when she tried to lay down last night, so she slept propped up high on pillows. She can't even feed herself with her right hand. She won't carry her her beloved stuffed animal with her injured side.

Don't let the briefly given smile fool you, she's spending a lot of time in tears

Last night she got home late and the snacks I'd sent her with didn't make up for dinner. I ended up tucking her into bed and spoon-feeding her chocolate pudding. Then this morning she was in such pain and tears (despite being on over-the-counter pain medication) that I made her a special treat of a strawberry ice cream shake for breakfast (yes, I sneaked in protein powder). I can see that if I had a child with a long or chronic illness, I'd have to exercise some serious self-control about pampering the child to excess! It's just that my heart is hurting to see my very active girl moving about so gingerly and crying often.

Precious in Pink

Our First Birthday Without Mom

Today is the birthday of my mom and her twin sister . . . our first without Mom.

Me and Mom

Mom really enjoyed birthday meals! I remember how she always put fun decorations on the table.

This is a subdued day for me. We miss Mom and it feels strange that she isn't on the other end of the phone, that I couldn't send her flowers or chocolates today. May she rest in peace.

Church Militant

Tongue in cheek, Chris labeled this photo, "Church Militant."

A couple of months ago, Chris had the children in a shop where they found these wooden toy guns. John in particular was enamored of them, so the children began working extra chores and saving their money. A few days ago, Chris took them back and the children bought their very own toys. Last night John slept with his!

Playing Kick-Ball

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The children have begun playing kick-ball with a group of Catholic homeschoolers and they are having the best time! We think this arrangement is just about ideal for homeschooling families:

1. The group meets for one hour twice per week at a local park and kids can come or not come, as they desire. No requirements to be there.

2. It is free. Equipment is merely the set of bases and a few balls, all of which the hosting family already owns.

3. There is a religious component: The game starts with prayer and ends with prayer. Also, before playing, the saint(s) of the day is discussed. Last Thursday, one of the saints was a martyr so the mother-in-charge asked, "Does anyone know what 'beheading' means?" Our little five-year-old son was the one who shot up his hand and correctly answered the question, which made me laugh.

4. The group is open to all ages, so I think the ages range from toddlers to a strapping 15-year-old boy who helps lead the group. A homeschool mother can bring her entire brood to the sport--because where is she going to leave everybody else anyway? And then everybody can play! If there are enough distinct age groups, we can divide into two groups. Meanwhile, the older teenagers are accustomed to working patiently with little children because they have many younger siblings--and that is a beautiful thing to witness! We like playing a sport that keeps our family together instead of splitting us apart as one parent hauls some children here there and everywhere while another parent has to haul the other children to Timbuctu.

John and Mary are having a blast playing kick-ball so far. (I don't have pictures because it's not so polite to post pictures of groups of other people's children.)

Trying Liquid Watercolors

At the children's Catholic Schoolhouse, I was introduced to liquid watercolor paints. I hadn't known watercolors existed outside of the little dehydrated pellets we give to kids, although it should have been obvious to me that the "real thing" is liquid! Anyway, the liquid watercolors were such a beauty to work with that I bought some for home use.

The watercolors really stretch a long way. I bought 40 ounces for $10. Water colors can be diluted with up to four parts water, so if I'm doing my math right (not my strong suit), these make 200 ounces of paint, which would be 20 cents per ounce. I used about a teaspoon of paint per cup on this particular day and even that turned out to be way too much (for the ten pictures they painted!), considering how far it goes on watercolor paper. That tells me be even more sparing next time.

Adding Fun Back into School

We're in Week 7 of homeschooling and I feel that I'm starting to move beyond some initial "shock and awe" to learning some positive lessons. I'm sure that down and up cycle will continue--for years!

One struggle has been getting the other child to play quietly in the room while the first child is having a one-on-one lesson. One solution has been negative consequences. But another solution is bribery: sometimes I am letting them play Starfall online during the interim moments. This also incents the child having his lesson to move through it with alacrity in order to have his turn on Starfall.

One problem I realized during my tearful Week 6 is that there wasn't much fun in my homeschooling. I looked at other Kindergarten curriculum and they were full of seeming fluff. I'd been doing Kindergarten-type games, arts, crafts, and projects for several years now! And now that I could finally do "real" school, we were going to crack open the books! Well, you can imagine how well almost exclusively doing book work have been going over with John. So, now I've remembered that Kindergarten still is almost entirely about playing and remains a year that isn't even required in school. Time to add some fun back into our curricula!

This week I've been starting our school mornings by playing Fundanoodle's Muscle Movers. Each card has a letter of the alphabet on one side, and an animal on the other side with directions, such as "stomp like a rhinocerous" or "slither like a snake." We throw ten cards or so on the floor, the children take turns picking a card, and then acting it out, which results in wild hilarity.

Then the children come to the white board and try to write the letter before switching turns again. This very silly game has been wildly popular here and now makes the children run shrieking with delight when I say it is time for school time. Let's just say that's a big change in attitude.

My favorite choice remains All About Reading for phonics. Such an excellent program!

Mary reading out of her primer

Even though John can read better than Mary (to be expected), I find it hilarious and exasperating how much more management he requires to sit and read just one story. Continual redirection is required on my part. Also, I thought this video was a good glimpse into how divided my attention is because of homeschooling with a three-year-old and one-year-old in the background. The background noise is often high, and there are sibling tussles to break up, occasional injuries to soothe. This aspect of homeschooling is very challenging for my patience, so I should be grateful for the many little opportunities to increase that virtue!

Dressed as a monk and a nun, the children work on their handwriting.

I treated us to buying some oil pastels and real pastel paper (which we will save for special occasions, I explained), so that is what the children used to illustrate their Bible story that day, which was about Jacob and Esau. Reading Bible stories and illustrating them to create their own Bibles has been one of my favorite ongoing projects (taken from Mother of Divine Grace).

No, Margaret, you may not use the oil pastels--it's crayons for you!

Having fun with puff balls: keeping a 17-month-old entertained is a real ongoing challenge

Doing math: Sometimes Mary follows along with the lesson, sometimes not. (I just found her a math curricula better at her level, as she can't keep up with John, of course.) That day, the girls were occupying themselves with "counting bears" while John and I did math-math.

We recently paid the $35 to have annual access to More.Starfall and so far I think it is well worth it. For example, there is a full Kindergarten curricula on there! Not that I'd want to rely on that, but it's there! There are approximately a zillion computer games to teach reading and mathematics. (As a side note, the environmentalism that we believe goes beyond good stewardship of God-given resources straight to earth worship that is rampant in many educational programs, computer and televised, today does not seem evident in Starfall, except for one limited game about Earth Day . . . and our kids just don't play that! That's a plus to me.)

The "teacher's lounge" at More.Starfall is an amazing resource. It has, again, approximately a zillion printables that can be custom made if the parent wants. So, when I print out a color-by-word or a word-search, I change some of the words to ones that thrill the kids, like "JOHN" and "MARY." "Mama, it's my name!!! How did that happen?!" I've been printing out a lot from the teacher's lounge and it is inspiring the kids to want to do way more school time than they were doing before. Plus it is a useful tool for me to buy time by giving them handouts to do at the table while I cook a meal, for example.

Taking a rain walk: Why, yes, that is a worm dangling from the stick! Moments later, the sky began pouring and we had to retreat home . . . where, of course, the kids continued to play in the driveway until they were soaking wet.

A Good Kind of Problem

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We have a good kind of problem: Since learning to read, Mary (3-3/4) won't be quiet. Previously she could sit through an hour-long Mass quietly. No longer!

Like any new reader, she reads by sounding things out loud. During Mass, she is sounding out the Scripture written on the walls and the words written in the missal. During family rosary, she is sounding out the words written in the rosary booklet: "Hail Mary, full of grace . . . Mama! I found a rule-breaker! 'The, the'!" While we drive down the road, she is in the back seat, sounding out signs. While passing time in the silent waiting room, she sounds out words from magazines and books: "Mama, I sounded out 'Madagascar'! What is 'Madagascar'?!" Yesterday afternoon, during a (rapturous, angelic-sounding!) children's Latin choir performance, she was sounding out words in the program. She disappears into her bedroom and I find her sitting in a chair, sounding out words in one of her children's books.

And when I take away any written material from her in an effort to emphasize that "this is not reading time! be quiet!" she starts saying words from her mind and encoding the letters: "Jaaaaam, jaaaaam, J-A-M! Mama, I spelled 'jam'!" And you know her triumphant announcement is loud, the way children are loud--including during Mass or other solemn moments. I really don't know what else to do because the continual reminders, verbally or tapping her lips, aren't working. I hate to punish her for the exploding joy of learning to read--plus I've done so and that isn't working so far!

Meanwhile, John (5-3/4) is reading well and slightly more advanced than Mary, but hasn't expanded beyond when I tell him to read from his primer. He reads well but isn't yet interested in the fact that reading allows him to "crack the code," to pick up a book that interests him and read it. For now, he'd rather bring Mama or Daddy the book and ask us to read it to him!

Parish Carnival 2012

SO MUCH FUN!

The kids have been asking me so many times per day for the last few weeks "how many days until the carnival?" that I finally made them a calendar so they would ask only once per day. They've been doing special chores for a month to earn spending money for the carnival games. And today was the day! We were there when it opened and stayed for four hot and grueling but fun hours. I was so grateful that I got to be present to see the glitter in their eyes.

I was hoping against hope that these swings were age-rated something like ten years old, but they were not. Even three-year-olds could ride them.

Finally I told Chris just to take the kids over there and make his own judgment call, as I couldn't watch.

See? There's nothing holding them in! They could just fly away! Of course, the kids loved this ride best.

Our parish's wonderful Poor Clare nuns who are semi-cloistered, but come out for special events.

We came home with baked goods from the lovely ladies of the parish and we await to see if we won anything at the silent auction!

Apple Pie and True Crosses

I think it is important to remember while roaming "the blogosphere" that we tend to post the beautiful moments and not the ugly ones. Charming pictures of cherubic children and well-tended homes abound. Have you ever thought about how ugly and a little bit hellish your face looks when you utterly lose it and shout at your children? I have. I'm glad there are no hidden cameras to take pictures of that.

I recently had a priest talk to me about crosses. I won't even begin to explain things as well as he did, but he was explaining that a cross that God gives us (and all crosses are permissively allowed by God) is the greatest gift He could give us. 

Okay, that's deep.

Think in your own life about a cross you carry, that causes you great pain, and then think about how God is allowing that exact cross specifically for you because it is the greatest gift He can give you.

I can't explain this all and I admit fully to still wrapping my brain around it. This idea has to do with the fact that crosses are from (allowed by) God. Where else could they come from? If God is omnipotent, then he has the power to remove any cross from our lives, and, if he doesn't, there's a reason. If God is all-loving, then He must deem that the cross is good for us. Good for us doesn't mean that it feels good, but that it is salutary for our soul.

How many crosses do people have that are given out to inspire people to reform their souls, practice virtue, in a way they never would have done otherwise, thereby saving their very souls?

So, we come to one "cross" as common and all-American as apple pie: the blessing of having children, and maybe lots of them, and maybe plenty of young ones. Yesterday I did not blog because all I would have had to talk about was A No Good Rotten Day in which I seriously failed as a mother, and then (after apologizing to the children) felt so guilt-ridden and hopeless in my defects that I curled up in a ball and my husband ended up taking the three children out to dinner, thus adding to my self-imposed labels Failure as a Wife.

Patience: the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like

Children challenge patience: seriously and deeply and often unceasingly. How is it that a mere three beautiful, healthy, and basically very well-behaved children can challenge my patience (which has about 30 years more practice than does theirs) such that I am reduced to ugly human behavior? It's shameful of me! And yet mothers and fathers across our country and our world succumb to having our own adult-sized temper tantrums toward our children every single day. No wonder that saints refer in their writings to themselves as lowly things like "worms." (I read today Peter Kreeft writing that there are two kinds of people: sinners who think they are saints and saints who know they are sinners.)

That children unceasingly prick my very imperfect virtue of patience is a cross. But where would I be without this most perfect gift from God? I'd definitely be even more impatient and self-centered than I am today: I shudder to think of how shallow I likely would be. Maybe I'd lose my soul over a total lack of patience--such a thing is possible! Think what sins ensue from failures to practice patience!

Today was a better day than yesterday and I spent time thinking about how our smallness requires fighting heroically to arise even over pathetically common crosses.

This morning, after getting to "sleep in" till 6:00 and after schooling the children, we set about baking apple pies: two to donate to the bake sale at the parish carnival tomorrow (our biggest annual fundraiser), one for our family to eat now, and one to freeze for my stepdad's upcoming visit!

Cherubic faces frozen in pictures don't really capture how much patience is required to cook with children helpers, do they?

Baking the apple pies had me meditating throughout the day on the unremarkable nature (unremarkable like apple pies) of many of our crosses. Just because they're common doesn't make them insignificant. God places us in certain situations in our vocations, and our path to sainthood (which we are all called to achieve) is by fulfilling those duties pursuant to our vocations while practicing Biblical virtues. Sainthood through housewifery!

So, I remarked to myself on the commonness of it all and how I was grateful to be in my second trimester and to have enough energy to stand and bake pies. But by the end of baking, pregnancy sciatica was stabbing at me and I couldn't stand anymore, and was then realizing that it was only 11:30 and I had a whole lot of day left before me!

I fed the littles lunch, put them into Quiet Time, washed all the dishes, and was able to lay down for 30 minutes while the baby crawled all over me--and I fell asleep anyway! So very tired.

It was then time to load up the kids for our first day of art class, resuming for the fall at our parish. Going out was about the last thing I wanted to do, but off we went with two children who couldn't have been more eager.

Unfortunately for my sweet children, I had confused the time and showed up exactly as art class was ending. They were very brave and did not cry, but proceeded to have fun during free play in the gymnasium. Mamas who are 19 weeks pregnant do not get to sit down when they have a toddler running around among big kids, swinging hockey sticks, and flying basketballs.

Three o'clock and time to go home . . . . I got to sit in a chair for about one hour (sweet relief!) before preparing dinner. Chris was busy planning a talk he would be giving that night, so I was managing dinner--"sitting means on your bottom! focus on your food! stop bothering your sister! do not rub that in your hair! we don't sing at the table and we certainly don't make those noises!"--by myself. The kids wanted to know why we would be having dessert tonight, a Friday, which they know is generally penitential. As we ate, I got out the saint book and read to them about St. Helen to explain the finding of the true cross, which we are celebrating today on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

All I had said was that St. Helen had found the true cross--and hadn't even mentioned that it is now divided into many splinters, which travel with priests across the globe being venerated--when John said with as much breathy wistfulness as a five-year-old boy can muster: "I surely wish I could see the true cross someday."

That was one of those exhausted mama moments when I felt a whole rush of words spoken to me all at once. See, we actually have a relic of the true cross at our parish today, available for veneration all day, but no longer tomorrow. And I had known that and intended fully to take the children to venerate it after art and gym class.

But I had forgotten.

And I had remembered that I had forgotten as we drove home, but I thought, "Oh well, that is really too bad, well, we missed that one. Going home now."

So, in that moment, I decided to accept the mama cross (little in the worldwide scheme of things, but big when one is feeling bone tired with sciatica knife stabs) that God was placing right in my face: "Well, John, guess what? There is a splinter of the true cross at our parish right now and I'm going to take you there to see it."

"Really?!"

It was 5:30, the children were droopy-eyed from no nap, the baby had had all of one 45-minute nap, and Chris couldn't help me because he was busy writing his talk. So, I loaded up the kids and we drove through rush hour traffic back to church where we had the wonderful privilege of being able to venerate the true cross. John told me that it was his first time and I told him that it was mine too.

Maybe we should venerate our true crosses, so to speak, more often. For example, maybe I should relish gratefully the feeling of fatigue that comes with a day like today because it takes me out of a state of sinful, pampered laziness.

John was particularly glad to have seen a piece of the true cross. We drove home, me keeping them from falling asleep with promises of ice cream to celebrate this feast day.

And now, they sleep. I face a disastrously messy kitchen to clean and three loads of laundry remaining.

I contemplate apple pies and true crosses.

Lego Popemobile

You know you're Catholic when . . . your five-year-old asks to build (with Daddy's help) a Popemobile out of Legos.

Margaret at 17 Months Old

Video of Margaret trying to say "Mary," which she can newly say, but I think she's just saying "Mommy" on this video!

Margaret at 17 months doesn't say as much as did her brother and sister at this age. (Miss Mary was speaking 35 words and making 27 signs by 16-1/2 months, and speaking in full sentences by 18 months!) Margaret has great receptive understanding and follows instructions. Also she does plenty of interesting little independent actions, like daily (without asking) going into the paper drawer, selecting a paper, climbing onto the shelf, selecting a pen, setting it up at the table, climbing into her high chair, and proceeding to scribble on the paper without writing on the table.


Words she says:
"And me!" (screamed repeatedly every time she sees her brother and sister lining up to receive something, even if she doesn't know what they're receiving)
ball
Brops (name for brother)
bye
Dada
hello
hi
Mary
meow (sound cat makes)
"Mine!"
moo (sound cow makes)
Mommy
"Nah!" ('no')
turtle
uh-oh
yum


Signs she makes:
ALL DONE
BYE
DIAPER
EAT
MUSIC
OUCHIE
PLEASE
POTTY
WATER
WHERE

Integrity with the Little Things

Within the last month or two, we had some little girls over for a play date and someone lost her pink, heart-shaped princess hair band. Mary was in raptures over finding it in our house and declared it, "the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!"

I mentioned at the time that we couldn't just keep it, that I should ask my two mommy friends who had been over recently if it belonged to their daughters. I threw it in a drawer and never got to that task because, from my adult perspective, it's just a hair band worth a few cents, less than the cost of the gasoline I'd use to drive to her house or the stamp I'd use to mail it to her.

This morning Mary found the treasure in the drawer and was admiring it again. She asked if I had found the owner and I said, "No, and I don't think we'll be able to, it's okay."

Gasping . . . "But Mama! Integrity means doing the right thing even when no one is looking. You have to try to find the owner."

This Mama stared agog at the three-year-old moralizing at her and said she would do her very best.

So, MD or PB, do you think this hair band belongs to one of your little girls?

First Day of Faith Formation

There is something heartwarming to a parent about her firstborn going to CCD class for the first time! (At our parish, it's called Faith Formation, I don't know why it's not referred to as CCD.) And, of course, we're doing catechism at home four or five days a week (currently using Chats with God's Little Ones).

The curriculum used at our parish is a combination of Faith & Life and The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, and I've read excellent things about both of those. I know personally three of the teachers who will be teaching John's class and feel so good about them.

Above is a Mass worksheet that apparently the children will be given each week. John doesn't have the reading skills to do it all by himself, but I found that if I sit down with him and the missal and I read him the readings while teaching him how to follow a missal, he can answer the questions himself.