Skating, Sitting Out, and Trivia

On Wednesday afternoon, we made it to the ice rink, especially anticipated by the children because we weren't able to make it to our planned skating last week.

Watching

Zooming

Big helping little

A six-year-old deserves a lot more public dignity about her escapades than does a toddler or preschooler, so I hope I'm not revealing too much to say that a certain Miss Someone outright refused to do her schoolwork that morning. And she still refused when I set a timer for her to do it after which she would lose her ice skating privileges. Rather than disrupt school for the others with a standoff and tears, I waited till we were leaving for the rink to inform her that she wouldn't be skating: she truly accepted it as just punishment. No crying or protesting. She did offer to quickly do her schoolwork, but I explained that the lesson she had to learn was doing her schoolwork during school hours (the mornings) when Mama is available to teach and when Mama says so: the little one agreed that that was all understandable.

Playing trivia with Mama

Boy, did this tender-hearted mama struggle to enforce the consequences! I think it would have been much easier if the penitent had thrown a huge, screaming tantrum so I would have been fueled by anger myself.

As it was, when I told her to grab a book to bring along to the rink, she asked if she and I could please play the Angelus Press Catholic Trivia game Chris recently bought for us. Well, tug at this mama's heartstrings even more!

At the rink, we played Catholic trivia. I highly recommend the game as it is fun (if one is competitive) and teaches superior catechism lessons. It was pretty humorous for me to wonder what fellow patrons thought as they'd sit nearby to put on their skates and hear Mary's little voice quizzing me about eternal punishment ("that's hell!") and feria days and requirements of fasting. What must they think of us?