7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

Pumpkins

Nope, there are no adorable photos of our family picking up our pumpkins because we were having One Stinker of a School Day that day, and all the time we could have used to go get pumpkins in the afternoon was used staring out the window, ignoring Mama, laughing and clowning around, coloring things randomly instead of doing work, and the list goes on.

I'm just glad that most days go a lot better than that one.

Stay tuned next week for requisite cute, fall pumpkin photos.

2.

Sleeping (or Not)

Speaking of pumpkins, my little 14-month-old pumpkin Thomas made me one tired mama this week. He got his days and nights mixed up, like a newborn! This had happened on single occasions twice before recently, and then three nights this week. Last weekend, he woke for the day at 4:00 a.m. (but I'd been up since 2:30 with another sick child), then the next night at 3:30 a.m., then a couple nights later at 4:00 a.m. I was so trashed with fatigue, I felt sick.

Anyway, the short story is that he was ready to transition to one nap. The longer story is, I've never had a child give me such a loud, disruptive signal that he was getting too much sleep!

Even fifth-time mamas need reminders, so I was noodling around online, reading articles about transitioning from two to one naps, and saw that Thomas was showing a lot of signs. His morning nap was extremely dependable but started still rather early in the morning (only three hours after he woke) and his afternoon nap was chaotic and spotty.

I thought transitioning him to one nap per day would take 4 to 6 weeks, but I did it (sort of accidentally) the very next day and didn't look back. He is going down for nap at 10:30 a.m. (which is about four hours after he wakes), sleeping for two-and-a-half hours (much longer than his previous naps), and then staying awake from 1:00-7:30 p.m. or so. That is a long stretch, so I will be hoping to gently move his nap a little bit later. But it can't be too late because we have afternoon outings most days of the week, so I need him rested and awake by 2:00 at the latest.

[UPDATE: And then on Thursday overnight to Friday, Thomas woke at 2:00 a.m. ready and rearin' to go for the day. Mama is trashed. Mama knows nothing. Mama cannot figure out how to fix her baby. Mama wants to crawl into a hole and hide for a really long time. See, God can humiliate even mothers of five, no problem.]

2.

Exercise Efforts

Dark when I depart for my walk

As the glorious cool fall weather envelopes us, my morning walk is becoming darker and colder. The children (whoever comes with me) and I are bundling up, and I'm starting my walk later and later because I don't like to walk in the pitch dark.

Pretty soon, I'm going to have to move my walk to right after breakfast to be walking in sunlight, but before the baby's nap, and that means I'm going to have to encourage John and Mary to do some school before 7:00 a.m. or to stay home and work on school while I'm gone walking. (Daddy is home working.)

Bundling up

3.

New Wheels

Mary (7) outgrew her bicycle, so she and Daddy found a beautiful used one at the bike shop, and they went in on the cost 50-50 to buy it. I'm proud of Mary for her contribution.

4.

Cheap Substitutes

I don't have noise-making toys in the house and I don't give my baby my smartphone to play with when he is bored (as much as he wants it--he does!). When I walk, he sometimes gets fussy stuck in the stroller, and I've found two quiet toys that occupy him: one is a basic calculator that makes no noise, and one is an old remote control for a fan. Each one has buttons he can push endlessly as we walk along the road, but that make no noise nor give him any screen time. Ha ha, score one for Mama!

Thomas' remote control

5.

Family Books of the Week (in progress or completed)

Margaret (5) reading 'Petunia' to Joseph (3)

• Read-alouds
• "Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints" (Loreto Publications, originally published 1894)
• "The Biggest Bear" (on CD)
• half a dozen books by Leo Politi--wonderful and so Catholic!
• "Peter and the Wolf" (on CD)
• "A Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli (on CD) (1949)--finished
• Mama
• "Divine Intimacy" (1963)--current daily holy reading
• For Connecting with History:
• "Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison" by Lois Lenski
• "Squanto's Journey"
• For studying the presidential election (and to compliment CCE history studies), I obtained these books from the library and set them on a shelf. I've added to John and Mary's daily school lists to read the "government books" for 15 minutes per day this month.
• "Our Country's Presidents" by Bausum (National Geographic)
• "Vote!" by Christelow
• "See How They Run" by Goodman and Smith
• "What Is Government?" by Kishel
• "And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?" by Fritz
• "Sam the Minuteman" by Benchley
• "Shh! We're Writing the Constitution!" by Fritz
• John
• "Bl. James Alberione" (Pauine Press)
• Half a dozen books on the military, police, and crime forensics
• A book on Krakatoa
• "A Lion to Guard Us"--finished
• Mary
• "St. Isaac Jogues" (Pauline Press)--Finished
• "Young Faces of Holiness"--Mary's new daily saint book
• "The Arrow Over the Door" by Joseph Bruchac
• A biography of Henry Ford
• "Ginger Pye" by Eleanor Estes--read all 320 pages in 30 hours
• "The Moffats" by Eleanor Estes
• Margaret
• Two "Elephant and Piggie" books
• "Petunia"

6.

Theater "Frog and Toad"

We attended our first children's theater of the season, a production of "Frog and Toad" at Imaginon. I stayed in the library with the baby, while I sent in four kiddos to sit with the group. I was viscerally anxious about how my not-yet-four-year-old would do without me for a 90-minute play, but apparently he did well.

It was one super long Thursday, what with waking at 5:00 to work out, supervising the children's music practice, leaving by 10:30 for the play, a restaurant lunch, going straight to Scottish dance, and a restaurant dinner, and getting home at 7:00 p.m. 

7.

Meals of the Week 

• Saturday
• Hot dogs, black bean corn couscous salad
• Sunday
• Chris ate a catered lunch at a meeting
• Mama and kids ate leftovers, chicken patty sandwiches, ice cream pizelles for dessert
• Monday
• slow cooker pork tenderloin, green beans, roasted red potatoes and spinach, homemade mac and cheese
• Tuesday
• roast beef, chicken nuggets, roasted sweet potatoes, boxed mac and cheese
• Wednesday
• Taco night
• Thursday
• Bojangles on the drive home from a very long day out and about
• Friday
• Planned: Italian sausage meatballs, pasta, homemade marinara

Our homeschooling group's annual Cupcake Rosary had to be rescheduled due to illness, so I decided that Mary (7) could still proceed ahead with our plans for her to bake her first independent cupcakes in order to have a 'practice run' before bringing cupcakes to the Cupcake Rosary with our friends. So, I let her at it, she baked them, I offered very little advice, and at the end she had a few changes she wants to make for next time. A milestone!

Mary's first cupcakes

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