{SQT} I Need More Gratitude

1. Math Club

Last Friday was the last meeting of John's Math Olympiad club, which is held for five months successively in a season. The hosts held a little snacks-and-play party for the siblings, and it was enjoyable. John has really liked getting to learn more about the theory of math.

Random picture of Mary homeschooling: History reading.

2. St. Patrick's Day

In which this mama failed to celebrate this feast day at all. Mamas out there who are in your earlier years of parenting or maybe who simply are more successful at living the liturgical year at home: keep up the great work and enjoy making memories! I used to be right there, planning domestic celebrations for nearly every feast day of note all year, but now I'm so busy with duties just to get through this one day that much of that is slipping away and I rely on our Mother Church to cover it for me. Anyway . . .

On Saturday, Chris took the oldest four children to meet their grandparents at the Greenville Zoo, both as a much desired birthday visit for Margaret, and to give me a mostly quiet house (with only baby and toddler) to catch up on chores and goals.

[Pictures to come? I hope!]

A very fun day was had by all, and they were back in time for Chris to whisk John and Mary off to a recital at the Steinway Gallery.

I kept the younger set home and visited the playground and served PBJs for dinner.

3. Margaret Turned Seven

Tuesday marked Margaret's much-anticipated seventh birthday, which you can read about here.

4. Little Workers

I could not possibly manage, stumbling and bumbling along as I even do, without teaching these guys to be Big Helpers. This week, in the absence of his siblings one day, Thomas got to carry the letter to the mailbox for the first time (with me escorting).

For a few years, I gave up entirely on any gardening or bird feeders because I could not maintain them, but now I can simply ask my crew to "go water the saplings we planted and fill the two bird feeders."

My 11-year-old has become enamored with a recipe for breaded chicken fingers he discovered, and he's asked if he can make it for us once weekly. Well, okay then! (I can promise you that this mama does not spend THE HOUR it takes to cut, dredge, and prepare breaded chicken enough for this many mouths.)

5. He's on the Move

David is not yet 7-1/2 months old and he's now easily locomoting around the room and pulling up. He also can quickly rise from on his stomach to sitting himself up. Bets are on that by next week, I will be able to say he is truly crawling.

I did rather hope for at least a couple of months of that heavenly phase marked by a baby happily sitting in one spot surrounded by toys--but no, this one's a mover and a shaker!

6. Boys' Room

We began the transition of moving Thomas (2-1/2) into the boys' room. He was already in a big boy bed in the guest room, but now he's in the bottom of the bunk in the boys' room, with John (11) and Joseph (5). He's doing well! The first night he stayed in bed all night until 4:30, when he crawled into the master bed for the rest of the night. The second night, he stayed in bed all night till 6:00! The third night? It's 6:40 a.m. as I type and he's still asleep in there . . .

Thomas covered in paint.

7. Gratitude

This week, two tragic stories hit close to home from friends-of-friends. Please pray for the hearts and souls of the two families  below.

Over at Shower of Roses (whose blog is written by a friend of my aunt's), a family suffered through the stillbirth of an 8-month baby during the same 24 hours their 3-year-old was suffering a bleeding disorder and receiving transfusions in another hospital (read here).

And I heard from a friend who moved from our parish up to Maryland as the latest school shooting unfolded--which really was not a school shooting, but was domestic violence. My friend posted on Facebook first that the shooting happened at a school around the corner from her home, and then that her neighbor had not heard from their daughter yet, then that it was exactly their 16-year-old daughter who had been shot and was in the hospital, and finally a day later that the girl was going to be taken off life support and would not survive (read news here).

It wasn't just "this week" that those stories occurred, but on the same day I had a complete morning meltdown of anger over "everything" going wrong. The honest truth is that I'm now at a stage-and-age of mothering that I truly cannot handle mealtimes by myself anymore. I'm facing that breakfasts are the worst because the two oldest kids (the only real helpers) are often still asleep, while I've been awake for hours with the younger set. I'm trying to do my morning chores (dishes, laundry, school planning) and can't, the two-year-old is getting into innumerable amounts of trouble because I can't supervise him enough and do anything else, and the baby is screaming most of the time because I can't hold him and do those other chores--or he's crawling and pulling up and getting a black shiner on his eye! I push through, thinking that surely I can make breakfast for my kids--what kind of loser mother couldn't even do that?!--and it turns out that I really need another adult present or at minimum both the 9- and 11-year-olds present and assigned to tasks.

That morning, I had made the error of feeding everyone else first, so I'd now been awake for three hours without eating (up since 5:30), and Thomas was in not-rare form, so he'd disobeyed, broken things, and on-and-on over and over again. I'm trying to be "consistent" so I had to stop making my toast five times to put him into time out and supervise him there that many times. Meanwhile, my eggs burned black and the spatula melted, and I couldn't even figure it out when my 7-year-old told me that something was burning. So many other things went awry, but I can't remember now what seemed worth of blowing my top then.

And none of it seems worthwhile in the shadow of a three-year-old with a terrifying bleeding disorder, a dead full-term baby, and a murdered 16-year-old young lady. I suspect like many of us housewives struggling through our days, I need to practice lots more gratitude. I need to calmly assess and face the deeply humbling reality that I truly can't manage making a meal for six children and of these ages without assigning one child to be on full-duty with the baby and one child to be on full-duty with the toddler, and implement some changes like that. And from there be thankful for every day I have with these children. I've watched enough of others' lives to see that children are lost (to death, to life choices, to tragedy, to estrangement) all the time. That my husband and I would get to "keep" all six of these children for our natural lives would, in fact, be the exception rather than the statistical rule.

So, time for me to go wake up my two older kids so that this old mama can have enough assistance to make breakfast for the gang. Thank you, God, for one more day.


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