Friday, September 2, 2016

7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

Miscellaneous Moments


Our children played in a music recital last Saturday (click here).

It is a real challenge for anybody to have alone time around here, and we have three personalities so far who really need quiet solitude in order to recharge. This week, Mary made herself a hiding spot beneath an overturned blue bin in order to read her book alone.

I think I may try that hiding spot myself.

Mary's feet

Joseph (3) has entered that phase of having memorized some books and insisting on "reading" them to anyone who will listen.

Joseph "reading" to Daddy

You know your child is a music nerd when this is the video you find on your borrowed-and-returned iPhone. (John, 9, recorded the inside of the piano while he played Concerto in Classical Style by Martha Mier.)





2.

Scholastic Scenes

I was able to breathe deep and enjoy a moment of homeschooling this week . . .

The baby was napping, the three-year-old was playing with Play-dough, the seven-year-old was writing her CCE presentation on King Menes uniting Upper and Lower Egypt, the nine-year-old was completing his math lesson on the computer, and the five-year-old was helping me cook curried butternut soup for lunch.

We are so blessed.


Then I was able to giggle when the weekly Grammar Fight broke out, just as scheduled. After various experiments, I have declared that one child gets to look up the assigned words in the dictionary for Sentences 1 and 3 each week, while the other child gets to look up the words in Sentences 2 and 4.

As fate would have it, apparently the kid who gets 1 and 3 always gets the good words--"Mama, he gets 'trice' and 'abundant'! I don't want to look up encircled and dapple-gray! Those are so obvious!"

 Each week, like clockwork . . .


My sweet fourth grader finished his latest spelling book and will start the next level on Monday.

A smile for Mama

The Real John


3.

Family Books of the Week (in progress or completed)

  • Read-alouds
    • "Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints" (Loreto Publications, originally published 1894)
    • "Clare's Costly Cookie" (2013)--Reading to Margaret
    • "Swallows and Amazons" (1930) by Arthur Ransome
    • All of listening on CD in the car to "The Silver Chair" (Narnia)
  • Mama
    • "Divine Intimacy" (1963)--current daily holy reading
    • Collection of Flannery O'Connor short stories
  • For Connecting with History:
  • John
    • about one "Imagination Station" book per night
    • Listening on CD to "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Mary
    • "Caddie Woodlawn" by Carol Ryrie Brink (1935)
    • one of the Narnia books again
    • Listening on CD to "Alice in Wonderland"
  • Margaret
    • Reading sentences out of "Almanzo" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which I am reading aloud.
4.

Exercise Encouragement

I'm continuing to slog away at the daily exercise . . . and I'm rather enjoying it!

John used to always sit on this particular rock on our neighborhood walks, from the time we moved into this neighborhood when he was just shy of two years old. Now his brother Joseph does the same (as have all his siblings in between).


Joseph on the favorite rock


I have declared that the five-year-old may not come on my exercise walks because I can't push her in the stroller (increases the stroller weight from 80 to 120 pounds), but she can't keep up either. John tried to fix that problem by inventing a rickshaw.
5.

Unfortunately, John tired out pedaling the rickshaw up the big hills, so we abandoned it on the side of the street, intending to tell Daddy as soon as we got home so that he would go pick it up.

But, I forgot.

When I remembered was in the midst of a severe thunderstorm that had broken out as Hurricane Hermine hits landfall in Florida and sends nasty weather up to us in North Carolina. Below are pictures of how we found the children just as I called them to the table for the delicious hot (now getting cold) dinner . . . 


They were playing in the back yard in a deluge, soaked to the skin, and covered in mud.


Four children needed to be dried, changed, and dressed in order to eat dinner.


Thankfully, I showed them grace and patience or I would have felt like even more of a WORM when I realized at the conclusion of dinner . . . THE RICKSHAW!

"Um, honey, I'm so sorry . . . we left a kid's bicycle, a double stroller, and your really good furniture dolly on the side of the road."

"When?"

"Um, about five hours ago."

It is a testament to my husband that he was utterly patient and sweet, and simply got up from the table, hopped in the car, and retrieved it in the rain, thunder, and lightening. It hadn't been stolen, and Chris returned just a bit wetter than he had been before.

He would never had said an unkind word with me about it, rolled his eyes, or sighed.

I am so blessed.


6.

Meals of the Week 

. . . shared to show that "My career is homeschool mother, not gourmet chef!"


7.

 We are so excited to start back at CCE (Catholic Classical Enrichment) on Friday morning! Blog post to come!

For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.

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1 comment:

  1. Alicia @ Sweeping Up JoySeptember 2, 2016 at 3:33:00 PM EDT

    I'll have to recommend a big plastic tub the next time my oldest, an introvert, needs some alone time. :)

    Your backyard looks so wonderful for playing in the mud!

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