7 Quick Takes Friday

1. Double Digits

Our firstborn turned 10 on Sunday, and I invite you to check out the retrospective photos, if you haven't already.

2. Feast of St. Nicholas

Then, as every year, I gasp for breath, have time to quickly clean up from birthday festivities, and the feast of St. Nicholas is upon us 48 hours later (click here).

3. Advent Report

As we wrap up the second week of Advent, I can report being continually humbled by how few new-and-wonderful changes to the routine I can manage to work in. I think we've managed to light our Advent candles and sing once per week instead of once per night. Tearing off from our paper chain daily to read the prayer intention has been a success, as has been reading the Spiritual Manger meditation.

I used to do so much to make Advent real and palpable for my then-very-young children. Now I feel that I'm using all my time just to teach school, make three meals, do laundry for seven, and clean the house, so to throw in a few extra obligatory Masses and refrain from festooning my house in Christmas decorations early is about all I can manage.

4. Before Ascending Mt. Everest was Escaping the Crib

Baby #5 is the best Lauer climber yet (and they're all excellent), surpassing even #2 (Mary) who leapt like a gazelle over baby gates and out of her crib by 18 months old. On Monday, Thomas (16 months) learned how to climb out of his crib (on the lowest setting) using the brute strength of all his 30 lbs. By the following morning, he showed me repeatedly that he can also climb out of his playpen prison. I am doomed, I tell you.

5. Scholastic Scenes

I am focusing on getting a couple of last really good weeks of school in before Christmas break. I'm trying not to limp to the end.

This week, Mary finished an All About Spelling level (and will move on to the next level), and John finished Prima Latina (and will move on to First Form Latin by Memoria Press). Two cheers!

Thomas is old enough now to be interested in coloring with markers briefly--maybe 15 minutes--which makes it a lot easier to do our daily History read-aloud time after lunch. It's difficult to read aloud while I'm chasing a baby on the loose who likes to climb (see above).

6. Family Books of the Week (in progress or completed)

• Read-alouds
• "Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints" (Loreto Publications, originally published 1894)
• "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne (1870)
• "My Path to Heaven"--the young person's retreat-at-home we are doing during Advent
• Mama
• "Divine Intimacy" (1963)--current daily holy reading
• "Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain
• "Lord of the World" (again)
• "The Code of the Woosters" by P.G. Wodehouse--My first Jeeves & Wooster book, if it's possible to believe that. I'm loving it.
• For Connecting with History:
• "Mr. Revere and I"--an absolutely delightful Loyalist perspective from the point of view of Mr. Revere's horse, formerly of the British army
• "The Reb and the Redcoats"
• a book about Daniel Boone
• "If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution"
• "The Winter at Valley Forge"
• John
• "St. John Bosco"
• "Manual for Spiritual Warfare"
• "The Hobbit"
• Mary
• "Young Faces of Holiness"--Mary's daily saint book
• "The Moffat Museum"
• Margaret
• "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" (with Mama alternating)

Margaret (5) is becoming a bookworm like her older siblings. One night, I was directing her to get her pajamas and get dressed, but she just walked around, her nightgown slung over her arm, reading "Hello, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" and ignoring me.

7. Meals

Seriously, I'm not even posting my meals this week. I was so busy, I never even got a meal plan together, nor did I go grocery shopping, so each day around four o'clock, I was wondering what I could scrounge out of the pantry.

On the bright side, this poorly planned week made me feel grateful for having a firmly established habit of planning meals weekly and shopping for them in advance. This habit took me years to establish, maybe even the first five or six years of our marriage and family life. The feeling of staring into a pantry an hour before dinner is due is one of anxiety and misery, and it's worth it to plan ahead.



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