I'm porting over April 2024 social media posts to our family blog. If you're already "friends" with me on social media, you've probably seen all of this!
In case there was any doubt: IT IS POLLEN WEEK.
I took the girls to Asheville, NC, for two days and one night—which might be our first-ever girls’ trip. It is definitely the first time I have left Thomas overnight.
(For the first year, I only left the house to take Thomas to medical appointments and to church on Sundays. Over the following two years, I’ve begun to leave for errands and such often, but usually no more than two hours at a time. My leaving was a big deal!)
I’ve been waiting three years for Dr. Glaucomflecken to introduce the Pediatric Oncologist!
I want to encourage all my local friends to consider visiting Seeing Auschwitz, a traveling exhibit that will be in Charlotte (and in America) for ONLY ONE MORE WEEK.
I took my oldest three children today--it is advised to be for ages 13+--and we found it incredibly moving. They asked questions and talked animatedly and passionately the whole drive home.
This exhibit is different and special: A couple of years after World War II ended, a carefully curated photo album was found hidden in a drawer: photos taken by an S.S. Officer at Auschwitz. It contains the only known photos of a train full of Jewish prisoners arriving at Auschwitz. These photos and more have been developed into an exhibit with an audio tour that takes about an hour to walk through. It is truly remarkable to see photos through the eye of a military officer instead of through the eyes of the victims.
I have found through clues here and there over my years as a homeschooler that maybe homeschoolers--or modern youth in general--are not emotionally moved or very informed about the Holocaust. On a personal level, I protected my kids at young ages from knowing anything about it (which I suspect was a mistake). Then in middle and high-school history textbooks, the section on World War II might give one page to the Holocaust. Similarly, I don't have a visceral, emotional reaction to hearing about the Korean War or the Mexican-American War: it is so distant from me.
However, World War II and the Holocaust feels very real to me and sparks emotions quickly. I was born only 30 years after WWII. I've visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. One whole wing of my step-father's family was murdered in the camps. My step-grandfather (on the non-Jewish side of the family) stormed the beaches at Normandy. I met old people who had lived through the war, who escaped Germany, one elderly woman who described to me what atrocities were done to her as a young girl around 10 years old when her German town was liberated by the Russian soldiers. I've seen survivors with the tattoed number on their forearms. I've traveled to about 25 countries, visited many of the battle sites and cemeteries in France, Germany, and Europe in general. I've toured concentration camps.
In an effort to make sure I don't leave my homeschooled kids uninformed any longer, we visited this museum exhibit today. We watched "Schindler's List" this week and I have a long list of other Holocaust movies to see over the next months. And I'll point them to the area of my bookshelf that contains numerous Holocaust narratives that I've treasured reading.
Loving Our Animals
Festival at Church!
Celebrating Margaret!
Since I have three boys ages 11, 8, and 6, I have a box of fidget toys to help during homeschooling. During times when I am reading aloud, they may fidget with their hands.
83% eclipse in Charlotte, NC, at 3:11 p.m.
Fun Movie Outing
John will be performing in Newsies this weekend (tickets sold out!) and in Les Mis in May (tickets available!)! (Also, he'll be in Broadway Revue at St. Ann's next week, so I'm basically drowning in theater details!)
Local friends: mark your calendars!
John, Mary, and Margaret will be performing at Broadway Revue this year, which is always a delightful, toe-tapping event. John and Mary are not only in the group songs, but each singing a solo piece.
This performance is free and family-friendly. It will be a long performance, but there will be an intermission to stretch one's legs.
"One hundred dollars of common grocery items in 2019 costs about $136 today, per NielsenIQ data. The average unit price of eggs has risen by over 40% over the past five years while cooking oil, beef, fruit snacks, mayonnaise, and applesauce have all risen more than 50%, reported The Wall Street Journal." (I hunted around to confirm this data before sharing, and this *is* the data collected by Nielsen IQ.)
If my English-major math is right . . . Our family has not increased our grocery budget for our family of eight in five years--although those kids are five years older/larger and eating mostly adult portions!--so that means we can buy 64% as much food (or quality of food) now as we could in 2019. That validates my experience as the homemaker standing in the grocery store aisles switching entirely to generic brands, limiting portions kids can eat, and skipping certain cuts of meat or treats.
I regularly send photos of expensive food items to my dad so that we can kvetch together. One of the latest was a 12-ounce box of Cheerios for more than $7. After buying one box of Cheerios weekly for forever, I did not buy it that week.
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Trying a new meal-planning whiteboard! I do my primary planning in my Gmail calendar, so this is to communicate the meal plan to the family.
School Room(s) Tour
Mom hack: I use mini chocolate chips. If I add, say, about one dozen mini chocolate chips per pancake, I suspect that is equivalent to three standard chocolate chips. My children think these are such decadent pancakes without realizing how little chocolate is in them!
(These are made with fresh milled flour containing all that good fiber and fat, tons of eggs, olive oil, whole milk . . . . )
Congratulations to Mary’s Quiz Bowl team for winning the South Carolina competition and going home with a $500 prize!
Congratulations to John for performing in Newsies with Eagles Wings Eagles' Wings Studio! He was an extra and acrobatic stage hand for this junior company performance. I attended with four kids today and tomorrow Dad and Mary will attend. It was a rousing, fun performance!
Only two weeks! It took me only two weeks this year to put away the Easter baskets and plastic eggs. Who knows what remarkable feats I will accomplish next?
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I was minding my own beeswax out in the yard when I heard a wee voice way up high . . . Thomas too high in a tree!
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Today I ran fire drills with the boys as part of our homeschooling day. It was all fun when they were pretending to be woken from sleep and then ran to the family meeting place outside. But you should have seen their little faces when I explained that they should never run back indoors for the pets or for Mom and Dad. After role-playing that Mom and Dad were not at the meeting place, I asked what they would do and David (age 6) replied, “cry.” Then we talked about how they would need to yell and scream and knock on neighbors’ doors. It is a good excercise to run every so often.
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I love Sandwich Night (Wednesdays).
Broadway Revue 2024! I love this show every year. Thank you, Kelly Schiffiano!
John and Mary performed so well in their solo pieces, and Margaret looks forward to being 14 next year so that she can do a solo piece, too.
This really, really is true of my generation. I can't tell you how many times I (born in 1977) was alone exploring the creek, the railroad tracks, the agricultural fields around town, and active construction sites. I wrote a comforting little song about being lost that I would sing to myself when I was lost riding my bike, and I'd sing it until I found my way back to an area I recognized and made my way home.
Holderness Family: Moms Trying to Make Plans. This is what it’s like. I have spent the last six weeks trying to arrange a dinner date with another family and we had to book for June, three months out. There was NOT ONE NIGHT between now and then that my whole family of eight was available (not already booked at an outing).
Two pups who are particularly clingy today are joining me for homeschooling.
Our baby (David - 6) has lost his first tooth!
Local friends: Please talk to me about feeding your family at Carowinds. We are blessed to get to go--for the first time in our 16 years living here!--for free, courtesy of Make-a-Wish North Carolina. However, no food is allowed in the park ("bags are subject to search") and it appears that meal plans are so very expensive . . . x 8 people! Large families: How do you feed your kids for a day at Carowinds?
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It is that time of year when we homeschool moms are sharing our kids’ accomplishments, so I will share on April 26 that I have not even reached teaching our lessons for the beginning of February.
Congratulations are in order for Mary! After something like seven years moving her way up the levels of youth orchestra, she was accepted for next year into the highest level of Youth Orchestras of Charlotte! Chris and I are excited to watch her in this new venture.
Listening to Mary practice organ is so peaceful for us parents. 💗
We enjoyed a great first visit to Carowinds, thanks to the generosity of Make-a-Wish North Carolina and Capital Automotive Group! (John couldn't make it because he was scheduled to work.)
We got to arrive in the crisp, cool morning at 8:00, park for free right next to the gates, enjoy a friendly welcome, swag bags, and early rides. Thanks to tips from experienced friends, we packed a big picnic lunch, exited the park to eat at our car, and re-entered, making the day entirely FREE.
John and Dad at a Concert
I am posting for posterity photos of the day I noticed the red-eyed, horrifying periodic cicadas emerging in our neighborhood. One bush alone might have 100 cicadas on it.
Today’s artistic photography of a cicada emerging from its shell
Circumstances today meant that I couldn’t teach any formal homeschooling and I was feeling pretty bad about it, until I reframed my thinking:
The elementary kids practiced independence, making their own breakfast and lunch.
They did more kitchen clean-up and dog-care chores than usual because I couldn’t.
Thomas asked me to choose a new pleasure book for him. I handed him “Old Testament Times” and, after starting it, he asked me how I always have THE BEST books. 💕 Then he spent the day doing crafts from the book with his brother (such as making tunics out of pillow cases).
The only TV they watched all day was a documentary on penguins.
I’ve finally given up trying to force Joseph (11) to like “Ranch on the Beaver.” I realized my pig-headedness when he asked me if he could just keep reading Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” instead. After reading all the children’s versions of Shakespeare plays, he is now reading the original text, and living it down much that he sometimes asks to read segments aloud to me. So, can this mama let Shakespeare be good enough? Sheesh.
Lots of Legos, running around outside in the fresh air, some independent science experiments, and making independent fun with neighbor kids.
I remind myself that I think we will be okay if circumstances sideline our formal schooling a bit.
My wee container garden in some of the only full sun we have is bringing me joy. I am hoping to feed and house butterflies with my selections:
Two Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Balloon milkweed (Gomphocarpus physocarpus)
Narrowleaf milkweed
Blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum)
Two blue black salvia
Rosemary
Strawberries
An onion Joseph planted
And pretty flowers that the former owner planted 35 years ago and which have popped up annually since
On Monday night, Chris and I so much enjoyed attending the end-of-year Latin choir from the Holy Queen homeschool co-op Margaret has attended this year. Thanks once again to Kelly Schiffiano for teaching another generation of Catholics our musical heritage.
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