Gloria in Excelsis Deo: {SQT} Last Week of Summer Break

1. School Orientation

This was School Orientation week. I had finished each child's master binder and writing out lesson plans for the week. One child at a time, I sat down the child, showed him his schedule for each of the five days of the week. The child and I opened up all his school books and familiarized ourselves with the index, the contents, how the assignments are structured. We went to the computer and practiced logging in to any online resources the child will be using. We walked around the house to the various work spaces (e.g., holy reading in the dining room, spelling in the kitchen).

During orientation, I found a few glitches, sometimes something double booked in the same time slot, or a missing resource, or a computer resource being blocked by our filtering software that needed to be adjusted, so it was an extremely useful exercise to be doing before school actually begins.

Each orientation took more than an hour (during the baby's nap time, one each day) and the children came away saying they are excited to begin school next Monday.

2. David

David leapt into a time warp this week! In fewer than two weeks since his first birthday, he went from saying "mama," "dada," and "nana" to also saying "zzzzz," and the long vowel sounds /a/ and /e/. He went from taking steps to walking being his primary mode of locomoting. He began climbing up furniture, such as the stepladder in the pantry, onto a wooden chair, and onto the coffee table and kitchen table, where he then stands triumphantly and throws his arms up high in the air.

Now that I think of it, he also had a terrible week of sleeping, his steadfast routine thrown into chaos, wonky overnights, and numerous mornings of his thinking that three o'clock was time to wake up for the day (and so he did stay up the rest of the morning, which means mama was stuck with that too). I've been a sleepy mess because of him, but perhaps his sleep roller coaster was, in part, because his brain was going through an incredible period of growth.

3. Music

Margaret's (7) violin is really coming along after only not quite three months of lessons. (Below is "Perpetual Motion" from Suzuki Book 1.)

Mary (9) is walking on Bach's Bouree for the upcoming competition season.

This week, we're experiencing some changes in our music lessons that will continue through the academic year, if all goes as well as we hope. We've brought in a new teacher--a music major college student whom we've hired to accompany Mary on violin for years now--to teach theory one-on-one to the kids (as group lessons were not going smoothly) as well as piano to Joseph (switching him away from his other teacher, just for pragmatic reasons). So, we'll continue to have piano and violin lessons in our home on one day, and then theory and Josey's piano in our home on another day.

4. Sibling Helpers

Margaret (7) whisper-read aloud to Joseph (5) from the red missal during Mass until he fell asleep, cradled in her lap.

We like it when a small child sleeps through Mass, but I don't like it when my morning walk messes up my baby's nap routine! One day, I took us on a family walk too close to David's nap and he began to fall asleep, so I had John carry him the rest of the way, so he'd stay awake until I could lay him down properly.

Each morning, my newly three-year-old bustles about getting out all the cereal supplies and lining them up for me: it is so cute!

Bonus reading on this topic: "What Your Kids are Learning Because they Have Multiple Siblings" by Lynna Sutherland

5. Muted Mutiny

They're not always helpful cherubs (oh, please believe me!). One sweet moment of mutiny is when I went to ring the brass bell to call the children to me and found that someone had muted it by putting this red rubber pencil grip inside it. If only all children's rebellion were so funny!

6. Our Current Reading

After finishing "The Boxcar Children," I began reading E.B. White's "The Trumpet of the Swan" to the little boys, and they're really enjoying it.

Mary was five when she first read "Anne of Green Gables," the book series given to her by Grampa Neil, God rest his soul, but I did not let her read the rest of the series because it got into topics too adult for her at that time (i.e., romance, career, marriage, child-bearing). This summer, I let her read the whole eight-book series, and that has inspired her little sister Margaret (7) to see what all the fuss is about. She got through nine chapters in the first day or so, and tells me she know "gets why!"

John continues through his wonderful assigned history reading, and I'm reading a couple of books ahead of him, currently King Arthur. I'm also reading aloud at night the James Herriot Stories, as well as the adventurous and moving missionary stories, "Tales of Foreign Lands."

7. Miscellaneous Moments

David graduated to a regular booster seat at the table, and immediately Thomas (3) asked to start sitting in a high chair with a tray. He's quite enjoying his new perch during meals, silly little guy.

I'm so grateful for Chris' wonderful Sunday breakfasts: French toast croissants with sauteed peaches for topping, bacon, and berries, bacon.

Flexees do not seem to be available for sale anymore, so I bought an inexpensive double pack of them on eBay. They have proven a fantastic toy! My children from 12 months to 11 years love to play with them, and the kids five and older will sit quietly for an hour together playing with them--and I haven't seen anything mesmerize like that outside of television!