Double Week Post!

This Friday blog post will cover two weeks' worth of happenings on the home front, since I forgot to post last week amidst some celebrations.

Quiz Bowl 2022

John and Mary had a great time participating in the daylong Catholic Quiz Bowl 2022. We've been attending and hosting practice events for the prior six weeks (so our schedule will lighten up now). John's high-school team made it to the semi-finals and Mary's middle school team to the finals: she won a cash prize! Best of all was homeschooled kids having fun studying their faith and competing together.

Broadway Revue 2022

John, Mary, and Margaret raced back from Quiz Bowl, 90 minutes away and out of state, to get here just in the nick of time to perform in the 2022 Broadway Revue, back after two years of being quashed. This wonderful show was put on after only five practices over the last month (again, now allowing our schedule to lighten up). How I wish I had the children's permission to post the videos of their songs! Alas, I do not.

John performed the solo "The Impossible Dream" from The Man of La Mancha.

Mary performed a duet "For Good" from Wicked.

Margaret was not old enough to perform outside the ensemble, making her the third of our family to launch into a campaign against the lack of fairness in the theater productions at our parish. Once she is old enough and the next youngest sibling is complaining, Margaret will join the camp that "this is perfectly fair in the ways of the world and you must simply wait your turn!"

Lastly, it only took me two weeks to put away the ten costumes and various accoutrements that were required for those two performances in one day.

Solo Parenting

I'm growing stronger mothering muscles again since Thomas came home a year ago. Two weeks ago was my longest solo parenting in the last year: Chris was gone to Florida for three days, home for one day, then gone over the weekend at the Fraternus father-son camping trip (with a brief few hours home to see Thomas's fashion show!). After this latest week at home, Chris is off for another weekend trip, this time with Mary.

Reorganizing

I got bit by a bug so have been re-organizing and de-cluttering. So much more awaits.

In the little boys' room, we got rid of the bunk beds and replaced with twins. We also moved two bookshelves into another area that I hope to become The Library.

I also changed up the school room (upstairs in the bonus room).

The puppies' playpen is upstairs and we can watch them while we do schoolwork. Also, certain four-year-olds can climb in the pen and entertain themselves.

Speaking of being four years old, if you ask mine to put on shoes for Mass, you might arrive to said church and discover that the little boy grabbed snow boots, and not just any snow boots, but snow boots that have been chewed to death by puppies.

Homeschooling

It is enjoyable to watch the various classes at Regina Caeli Academy completing a lot of spring and end-of-year projects. John (9th grade) has been writing some more serious academic papers plus completing his first lengthy, fiction story assignment. Margaret's fifth grade participated in a beautiful Living Stations of the Cross which parents were invited to attend, and Joseph's third grade class ate a Medieval Feast, for which I baked chicken thighs and apple pies, since that is what they have been studying in history this year.

In this otherwise conventional recipe, I substituted granulated sugar for allulose, which has zero impact on glucose . . . and my family never suspected a thing! This was a Thomas-friendly apple pie that tasted totally normal! (Read about this miracle food here.)

One of my bigger "accomplishments" that took an entire year was getting Thomas on somewhat of an eating schedule so he wasn't requiring me to stop schooling (or any other task) more than a dozen times daily to cook for him. After breakfast and clean-up, we can get an hour of school done before a civilized 10:00 a.m. snack when we listen to Catholic Sprouts daily, and then we can last another 90 minutes until lunch. I can't tell you what a positive difference this has made: some of it was my effort, but much of it was Thomas's body healing.

Meanwhile I'm treading water as fast as I can. I'm never able to finish teaching or requiring all the assignments they are "supposed" to do. Probably my greatest accomplishment lately is coming to more understanding and granting myself grace that every time I spend a day at Levine's taking Thomas to medical appointments, we don't/can't do school that day. That makes us fall further and further behind. My third grader and fifth grader absolutely do not get the attention they need from me to learn the basics of elementary school. I can't give attention when I'm not even home.

That's life. That's the hand God dealt us that we now get to learn how to play. The fewer tantrums I throw about it, the better.

Narration and illustration by Thomas (6)

Little Entrepreneurs

Among the top three kids over the last couple of weeks, there have been two jobs collecting mail during vacations, one job weeding a huge area, and another two-day job spreading a mountain of mulch. Meanwhile, John had his first interview for a summer job . . . and landed it!

Late Night Visitor

That moment when I was already in bed, lights off, half asleep, and a child walks in with the preface, "Now, don't freak out, Mama," before bringing A SNAKE OVER TO MY BEDSIDE AND TELLING ME SHE FOUND IT IN MY KITCHEN.

Then my 11-year-old ran in screaming, “It’s a baby copperhead!” And my 15-year-old began arguing that it definitely wasn’t, while I kept telling them louder and louder to take the possible baby copperhead outside before discussing further.

I texted my dad, who helpfully pointed out that probably this baby snake had hatched recently and nearby with hundreds of his little slithery siblings.

The next day, my children put a rubber snake on my arm while I was driving.

Medical Updates

In the last two weeks, Thomas had his quarterly visit to Gastroenterology as well as a six-hour day of appointments getting imaging and meeting his new Hepatologist--that's a liver doc and is not the same as a herpetologist (which we could have used the other night). My preparation for all of these big appointments is to gather and polish all the data I have on Thomas, write narratives, and prepare an outline of the topics to be covered in the days prior. Then the day after the appointment, I have to incorporate all the new information, plans, and lab data into my binders, writing, printing, and so forth. This takes many hours.

The hepatologist opened up Thomas's electronic medical record and compared all his lab readings for the past 21 months, talking through all of it with me. Can you even comprehend how many lab readings that is? She opened and read in front of me all the surgical notes our surgeon has ever written. She spent two solid hours with Thomas and me, all the while with the best bedside manner.

I'll hold back on another fatiguing update that is probably more details than 90% of my readers want anyway, but suffice to say, a liver biopsy under anesthesia is being arranged for Thomas, which is not something one does when everything is hunky-dory with the liver. Prayers are appreciated.