7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

On Monday, I wrote a Day in the Life blog post.

2.

Our Tuesday was filled with school, regular music lessons, and hosting my Light Weigh group, but meanwhile Charlotte was bursting forth with violent riots that made national news.

3. 

We went apple-picking on Wednesday, which I wrote about on the blog. Riots continued overnight, more businesses looted, and a second man killed.

4. 

Thursday was a quiet day of school.

I hit upon a new plan to make a little play area in the laundry room, then gating the baby inside of it. It doesn't work for me to gate him into the den because (1) he disturbs whoever is trying to practice piano and (2) he just pushes down the gate because he is that strong and he can't see me around the corner.

If I put him in the laundry room and pin the gate into place with a heavy wooden chair, he seems pretty happy because he can see me teaching at the kitchen table. Here's hoping this tactic works for more than one day.

Chris took the kids to dance lesson, while I stayed home and tried fervently all afternoon to figure out how to make Playlists for the MP3 players (following these instructions). I don't think I will figure out how to make this work before I die.

Thursday overnight was a challenge to say the least. It all started with the baby taking his normal morning nap, but then he wouldn't fall asleep for his normal afternoon nap. He cried in his crib for about half an hour, at which point I gave up, pulled him out, and kept him up till 7:00 p.m. (an hour earlier than his normal bedtime). He has a respiratory illness, so I gave him Benadryl and Advil at bedtime.

At 9:00, I sat down (head drooping with fatigue) to place the grocery order online for the week, but the baby proceeded to wake up four times within the next hour. Finally, I gave up on my grocery order to lay with the sick baby . . . but, no. The baby was wide awake and strangely alert. It was like I'd given him an "upper" instead of Benadryl!

I took him downstairs because he was so joyously LOUD that I knew he'd wake his sleeping siblings (the three-year-old had just come down with this bad, hacking cough). I placed my grocery order online at midnight, and then collapsed on the sofa, with the baby still literally running gleefully all over the downstairs. I fell into a light sleep on the sofa while the baby found a sheet of star stickers, which he painstakingly peeled off, placed all over his legs, and then got a stool so he could stand at my snoozing head and place all over me and my pillow. (That would have been a cute picture if I weren't a growling bear of grumpiness at that point.)

The baby did not fall asleep until 2:00 a.m.

5. 

The other children woke me at 6:30 for the day.

I am fatigued to the bone, and so grateful (SO GRATEFUL) that I am a stay-at-home mother, as today is going to be one of Survival Mode. My sweet children woke up, got themselves cereal, and set up a game of cards. (I saw their playing a game and felt love for the "good fruit" of strict TV rules: they wouldn't even consider turning on cartoons by themselves, nor are they even allowed to change to a new show on Netflix without asking permission.)

I am keeping the two littlest boys home from CCE, and Chris (THANK YOU!) is taking the three healthy bigs. We shall see tonight if we can still attend Food Truck Friday, a festive fund raiser at our neighborhood rec club, or if we're collapsed in a heap.

6.

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
• Mama
• "Divine Intimacy" (1963)--current daily holy reading
• "Guidance to Heaven" by Cardinal Giovanni Bona (written in the 1600s)--Daily holy reading that I finally finished, so now I get to pick a new one.
• Collection of Flannery O'Connor short stories
• "Nothing Superfluous" by Fr. Jackson--Trying to read this because Chris bought it for the Latin Mass table at church and asked me to read it. Kind of above my pay grade right now.
• "Eternal Woman" by Gertrud von le Fort--Trying to read this because it is recommended by a holy friend, but am struggling with its erudite writing.
• For Connecting with History:
• "Madeleine Takes Command" (1946) by Ethel Brill--Mama reading aloud, we are hooked on this one!
• John
• Listening on CD to "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson
• "Mad Scientists Club"--again!
• "St. Thomas More" (Pauline Press)--Finished
• "Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati" (Pauline Press)
• Mary
• "Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati" (Pauline Press)--Finished
• "St. Isaac Jogues" (Pauline Press)
• Margaret
• "Amelia Bedelia" three-book volume--She has read 68 pages by herself this week!

7.

Meals of the Week 

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

• Saturday
• Taco night: chicken tacos, taco salad, chips with guac and queso, rice
• Sunday
• Breakfast:  Asparagus Mushroom Bacon Crustless Quiche, croissants, bacon, eggs
• Dinner: Spaghetti (for kids) and Zoodles (for parents) with marinara and meatballs (the Zoodles were surprisingly delicious!); garlic knots; leftover squash--and no dessert after the gluttonous inhalation of sweets at church after Mass!
• Monday
• Cauliflower Fried 'Rice' (for parents), frozen pizza for kids
• Tuesday
• BBQ chicken, roasted veggies (butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower, bell peppers, sweet onions), boxed mac and cheese
• Wednesday
• Restaurant on the drive home after apple picking

Pizza Zucchini Boats

• Thursday
• For adults: Pizza Zucchini Boats, some with pepperoni, some with sausage--I really enjoyed this and they were so filling for about 400 calories!
• For kids: biscuits, sausage, brown sugar fried apples
• Friday
• Food Truck Friday at our neighborhood rec club

For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum. (Her post on "Deliberate Practice" today is highly worth reading as we contemplate our prayer lives. I know I absolutely see the benefit of deliberate practice in our children's music education.)