{SQT} Seeking the Sacrament of Confession

1. More Birthday Fun

Joseph's grandparents came to visit and we invited over a couple of families for a Sunday brisket supper, which was a lot of fun fellowship.

Requested by Joseph: gingerbread cake with powdered sugar

2. What Are We Reading?

A snapshot of the books we're in the midst of reading through this week . . .

Read-alouds for pleasure:

• Mama's Bank Account--absolutely delightful book about a Norwegian family in San Francisco in the late 1800s, suitable to read aloud to all ages

Read-alouds for History this week:

• The Great Wall by Mann
• The World's Story by O'Neill 
• The Saint on Horseback: The Story of King Louis IX

Katherine

• Kidnapped by the Vatican?
• Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of Josemaria Escriva by Simmons
• Divine Intimacy 
• From the Housetops--the periodical by the Saint Benedict Center, I strongly recommend this!

John

• Crown of the World
• Everyday Millionaires by Chris Hogan
• From the Housetops--the periodical by the Saint Benedict Center, I strongly recommend this!

Mary

• Redwall: Martin the Warrior
• Straw into Gold
• The Writings in Prose and Verse of Eugene Field
• How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books
• a hagiography of St. Thomas Aquinas

Margaret

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• The Bible
• Tiki Tiki Tembo 
• The Hundred Dresses
• The Moffats
• a hagiography of St. Thomas Aquinas

Reading aloud to Joseph and Thomas

• Fifty Famous People (there was weeping one night because I did not read this)
• Angel Food for Girls and Boys
• A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Thomas has recently re-discovered our collection of old-fashioned Golden Books, so has been having me read many of them to him.

3. Margaret's Creativity

This week, Margaret finished her story (three pages typewritten), presenting it ceremoniously to Grandmom to read aloud.

She also submitted two paintings to the HSLDA art contest, and then she topped off her creative week by typing and formatting a love letter to Mama. I was called down the stairs to find hearts strewn across the table, Margaret presenting the letter, and Mary playing theme music on her violin. What did I do to deserve that kindness?

4. John's Creativity

John (12) has been greatly enjoying his sacred art class at his hybrid school. He worked on a weaving project--including building the loom--during the first quarter and got to bring it home recently to finish in his free time.

5. Sport of the Week

This week, it's been all about street hockey, whether in sneakers or on roller blades. Also, the weather dried and warmed ever so briefly and I led our first family walk through the neighborhood in months.

6. Thomas

I recently made a few puzzles available again (instead of remaining locked up), so Thomas has been one happy three-year-old.

7. Confession

I have successfully taken six children to Confession by myself for three Wednesdays in a row now as part of my hoped-for newly established routine to make the sacrament available to them weekly. I have watched over the years as numerous large families reach the age of having middle schoolers and then teenagers and they start making Confession available very regularly. I think that by that time everyone in the family needs the graces!

So here is our family having reached that stage!

Chris and I decided that regular Confession is more important than squeezing that many more academics in, so I'm taking two hours out of our incredibly busy day to take us there. I write it into the morning prayer time for all of us to do a private Examination of Conscience, and then we stop school at 10:45 and get back just in time for a quick lunch before resuming school. I'm doing this even with a loud, babbling one-year-old and a three-year-old who sings loudly while we walk up the silent church full of prayerful adults toward the bathroom, "Me going potty in the church! Me going potty in the church! . . ." That's how important this is becoming to me.

I don't have a tremendous amount to offer, but I have noted that my three Confession-age children have been delighted and excited to be going to Confession and public recitation of the Holy Rosary each week. So happy that they're telling me that they love it and writing "yay!" on the school calendar next to the entry for Confession.

Some younger Catholic families earlier on the path, so to speak, might wonder how to get to this point instead of getting to the point where kids are resentful, scared, or rebellious about Confession. I think these practices are helpful:

• The parents should be going to Confession with regularity and the children should know it. Even better is if the kids tag along and witness their parents going to the sacrament.
• Confession should be joy-filled and not made out to be scary to the First Holy Communicant. When I'm homeschooling my child during the FHC year, we do a lot of role-playing of Confession, each taking turns being the priest and being the penitent, so the child is hearing the priest's words over and over, and he is practicing his words over and over, and he's practicing confessing certain imagined sins. This is so helpful. (We even take the child for a tour of the confessional: we just get in line and quickly pop a head in, tell the priest we're showing the confessional to our child, and they've always been welcoming.)
• I don't know whether this helps or not but we only participate in Confession in an old-fashioned confessional or box or with a screen: we would not do Confession face-to-face unless no other format was available.
• Little children can feel overwhelmed about trying to remember sins. It is okay for a small child to just go in with three simple, memorized sins to recite. Getting too complex can be overwhelming and lead to fear.
• Parents can help guide young children in learning how to do an examination of conscience, but they should not be reading their child's confession list. This is one of the first steps toward developing a private relationship directly between the child and God.
• Children should be taught about mercy. Especially because I come from a non-Christian background, not converting to Catholicism until 28 years old, I know about the inexplicable mercy of God on the wretched. From the youngest of ages (5, 6, 7), I explain to my children, "There is no sin too big for God to forgive. God is bigger than any sin. Saul persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians, and God forgave him and made him into St. Paul, THE APOSTLE. You think you're so special that the priest hasn't heard your sin innumerable times? You're not that special. There is no sin God cannot forgive, so always go to Confession."

All of that said, I have yet to get one of those kids who is naturally terrified or resistant to Confession. Maybe we just got lucky, or maybe some of our practices have helped, so I offer them for whatever they are worth.

(It's only been three weeks. Pray for me that I have the fortitude to continue taking us most weeks and that this becomes a truly ingrained habit.)


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

{SQT} Joseph's Birthday Edition

1. Exercising in the Mornings

In case you were wondering whether it was a pipe dream or a realistic hope that I could exercise in the mornings with my new scheduling scheme described two weeks ago, the answer is pipe dream. We will add it to the pile of rubble of ideas I have tried.

2. Saturday

Saturday was typically busy plus we threw in my taking down all the interior Christmas decorations--and maybe we'll get to the exterior decorations by Candlemas!--as well as the girls playing violin at a music recital.

Mary and Margaret are preparing to play these songs at Federation later this month.

3. New Pets: Finches!

Click here to read about Mary's new pet finches! We are enamored with them!

We bought the hanging nest typical of finches, but the girlies wouldn't sleep in it, so we went back and bought a wee cup nest . . .

. . . which they snuggle in and share! I could just eat them up!

4. Joseph's birthday

On Tuesday, our city's hockey team, the Checkers, was having its 1950s night for which tickets were about $2, food prices were rolled back, too, and the cheerleaders wore poodle skirts covering the knees and sweaters, making this the perfect excuse to take Joseph for a father-son date near his birthday. Some friends and their dad were also going, so the whole group of fellas joined together for fun.

Joseph turned six years old on Wednesday: click here to read all about it!

5. Miscellaneous

After Chris finished assembling out new kitchen chairs, there were leftover screws, nuts, bolts, and thingamajigs, which Chris presented with ceremony to three-year-old Thomas. Let me tell you, this was the best gift possible for all involved, and Thomas spent numerous cumulative silent hours sitting at the table "building things" this week.

"Me want to play with my tools."

I spotted my sturdy and chubby Thomas one day and was struck that he's still so little, but he's big enough to pick his own CD (here, "Casey at the Bat"), put it in, perch on the couch, and listen to it during Quiet Time.

Mary completed a weaving project on her homemade loom and sewed a new dress for her corn husk doll this week.

Margaret took it upon herself to start writing a fiction story, which I think is her first typed story. She was passionate about it and skittered off to work on it every spare moment she was allowed, plus plenty of moments she was not allowed! It's more than two pages long and going strong.

6. Youngest Four

When Chris was gone Thursday and Friday taking the oldest two to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life, I was left with the youngest four all to myself. Boy, was this a joyful and meditative experience for me.

Going on errands in the morning on a school day . . . because we could!

1. My 7-year-old was transformed and absolutely shined getting to be the oldest. I must figure out how to let her step out of the shadow more often.

2. I was reminded just how hard it has been to go from teaching two grades among four kids to teaching four grades among six kids. Although it's only about a four years' difference (and shouldn't I be a more skilled mother now?), it is a difference that is pulling me to my knees (hopefully in prayer, but often in despair). With only two grades to teach, we enjoyed doing school in our pajamas like the old days! I did not have to keep us on any kind of precise time schedule (in contrast to the militant schedule that is dictated by the half hour I use now) and we happily finished all our work and music well before lunch.

3. And because we actually finished, I napped during Quiet Time, which I have not done probably in two years. I live on extremely little sleep and I get no daytime rest, which makes me A Growling Bear. This experience of RESTING and FEELING HUMAN reminded me of where I used to be, where I am now, and what I could maybe change, possibly, but I don't know how.

4. Similarly, because I did not have to manage schoolwork every single second (while breaking up fights all day) from 8:00 a.m. till 4:00 without respite, I could actually be a housewife during the afternoon. Those housewife's chores really do not disappear, even when one is homeschooling. For example, one afternoon while the children played peacefully around me, I emptied out the four bottom cupboards, which were a black pit of unknown appliances, cleaned it all out, separated out twenty-five percent for donation away, and put it all back in a very orderly fashion. I've been wanting to get to that chore for months and now I will be able to prepare meals more easily.

5. There were only two, really short fights all day. 'Nuff said.

6. And I managed all this with four children seven years old and younger without hardly turning on the television to babysit them. I let them watch a half hour while I cooked dinner and then we had a family movie night of watching the first half of George Balanchine's 1993 "The Nutcracker" (our preferred version) in the evening.

7. I went to bed with my heart cheerfully relaxed (!) and reflected that not one person yelled in anger all day--not the kids, not me. How can I care for all six of my children and add in those two other grades with a husband who regularly travels for his career while maintaining any of this peace? Is the problem my expectations? But the workload of fourth and sixth graders is real (and we do serious music and Latin pursuits), it's not just unschooling I can ignore. More experienced mamas of families as large or larger than mine . . . would you like to offer your experiences?

7. March for Life,Washington D.C.

An official report will be issued later about Chris and our two oldest who are at the March for Life in Washington D.C. as of this publishing! [click here to read all about it]

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

Joseph Turns Six!

Happy birthday to Joseph Anthony, my only baby ever to have golden curls, who is now six years old!

Now We Are Six
By A. A. Milne

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Joseph at four days old--five pounds and twice the size of my paperback

Joseph was my littlest baby, even falling below six pounds after his delivery, but he's certainly been one of my most energetic kids!

I want to encourage any mothers earlier on the path to keep instilling your family traditions because your oldest children, young though they may be, are watching you. My 7-, 10-, and 12-year-old kids ("older" in this household) stood in for me in so many ways for Joseph's birthday when they saw me stretched so thin, forgetting our very own traditions, and unable to fulfill them anyway. Without my asking, the day before the children found Joe's stack of gifts and wrapped them for me. The night before, when I was running a difficult bedtime routine alone, my two big girls remembered to decorate the birthday boy's chair . . . and look at his beaming face at their simple decorations made of colored Post-It Notes and white printer paper cut into paper chains with blue painter's tape because we were out of regular Scotch tape! I am so grateful I taught my children what traditions I could when I did because now they step in for me.

It was a bustling school day and Chris had to leave on a business trip, so we had a birthday breakfast celebration. I could not have added in to my regular morning housekeeping chores, caring for three little boys, and making of the regular breakfast an extra 45 minutes to bake something special, so Mary requested to wake up at six to make Joseph a breakfast applesauce cake. This year, the children insisted we adopt a new tradition we borrowed from the Bates' family TV show: we "gave praises before presents," which means that each family member praised the birthday child. I had all of us write down the praises ahead of time and read them aloud, so now Joseph can keep those and remember the kindnesses. And after all that, he got to open his gifts.

Sister Margaret wrote a private joke into her card to him . . .

For years, I have gathered the children a couple of weeks ahead of every birthday and every Christmas to have them go in together on a gift for each sibling (and the other parent). This takes actual brain cells that work and remember, of which I am in increasingly short supply. This year, I simply did not remember . . . but all three older siblings remembered ahead of time to buy birthday gifts for Joseph, which they managed on their own. Mamas, I encourage you to keep instilling your traditions because those children are watching and learning! It brings tears to my eyes.

Joseph is halfway through his Kindergarten year and is learning how to read very well. He enjoys learning phonics, math, and catechism from me, while he does penmanship and listens to any read-alouds I assign with his sister Mary each day, and he does his daily piano practice with his brother John. Joseph is a boy of great passions: he feels big, whether good or bad, and he's a peacemaker who tries to bring fighting siblings together.

Josey's faith has begun blossoming these last months, I've noticed, as he asks me the Big Questions about God. He has assembled in the boys' bedroom a little "holy collection" which he guards carefully.

And I noted this week at Confession how carefully he occupied his little brother, putting Thomas' head on his lap, and whispering to him about the meaning of the various stained glass windows in the church.

Josey talks regularly now about his hopes to receive his First Holy Communion in about a year and a half.

Happy birthday, dear boy!