{SQT} Fall Weather Has Arrived

N.B. I really miss being able to write thoughtful essays about parenting, Catholicism, and femininity, like I used to do on this blog. I remember a distinct shift a couple of years ago when my load of duties became too big for me to organize my thoughts anymore and all I could manage were quick shots of our life on the blog. The below blog post, which should have taken fifteen minutes to assemble (I can't even call it "writing"), took me an hour because of all the interruptions from children. (And, of course, therein lies my failed spirituality because the blog is the interruption, not the children.) Maybe someday God will permit me the time to write again, but there are no promises in life.

1. Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend involving two big potluck get-togethers: fun but tiring!

2. Neil's Birthday

Tuesday would have been Grampa Neil's birthday and I was more tearful that day than any other since the week of his death. I kept hiding in closets, the pantry, and laundry room crying and felt very angry about his passing.

3. Speedy School

The last two weeks have been really fantastic, which I attribute to my implementing anew a schedule (click here).

Last week, the children were getting their sea legs learning the new schedule--during which I also added back in the subject of Latin--and they stayed on task and got everything done by two o'clock: win! This week--when I added back in the subject of Grammar--the children embraced on their own initiative the concept that they could start working on their seat work as soon as they woke up and squeeze those subjects into all the cracks of time between subject blocks in our schedule, and thus be completed way earlier than normal! My fifth grader, with the heaviest work load, finished before noon each day, instead of not finishing till two or three! No nagging, no fights. It was beautiful, so beautiful.

4. Cuties

Thomas (2) got a hold of my phone and took a series of photos while he was walking down the stairs. It's pretty frightening to see the view from the top of the stairs from a toddler's perspective.

Mary sometimes supervises tummy time for David, which is good because I certainly don't have time to do that. (Never fear: wearing a baby in a sling builds the core strength of an infant beautifully, so my babies don't seem to suffer from the fact that I rarely put them down for the first six months.)

5. New Fish Friends

We obtained new fish friends: a guppy and a neon tetra. Wish us the best.

6. Pumpkin Patch

On Wednesday afternoon, we went as a family to a pumpkin patch. They were all long ago "picked out," and had repopulated the field with store-bought pumpkins, but our children didn't mind! They got to play on the extensive playground and eat apple cider doughnuts.

7. MiraVia Banquet 2017

On Thursday we attended the MiraVia annual fundraising banquet, which counts as one of the times I can count on one hand that I leave the house in the evening over the course of a year.

Our two oldest began coming with us last year. Upon being asked by #3 this year, we decided that it was a rule that one at least had to be receiving one's First Holy Communion to come along--plus have very good table manners!

I attend the banquet every other year: I go when I have a portable baby-in-arms, and I stay home when I have a toddler too active to come but too young for me to want to leave at home (the one year olds). David was my easiest baby yet because he is only 2-1/2 months old, so he nursed or slept the entire time. The tradeoff is that I haven't lost any baby weight yet--I like to wait a whole year before I bother, ha! (note the sarcasm)--and felt like I had nothing appropriate to wear (note the First World Problem).

We had an interesting conversation while walking to our car. I was fondly recounting each baby's attendance: how 10-month-old Mary who charmed any crowd stayed awake the whole time and was the life of the party, but how 5-month-old Margaret was miserable and screamed in the hallways the whole time, where I walked her and missed the entirety of the banquet, so that I cried and was very frustrated. Mary asked mystified why I was crying and unhappy (just because I had to pace the halls with a screaming baby for three hours and missed my once-annual nice outing)?

I realized that, while I am no perfect mother (believe me), I was much more impatient at Baby #3 than I am at Baby #6. I explained to Mary that I was a less experienced mother then and "I still wanted to get my own way a lot more than I do now."

I was reminded by her innocent question of when a mother of many tried to encourage me one time when I was so angry at having to stay out of the sanctuary every week during Mass because of tending to tiny tots. She said kindly, "I missed Mass for ten years straight." I was so angry, I was livid: She did not understand! She was belittling my sacrifice! Well, yes, she understood more than I could understand then, and now I'd say the same thing because I have: except for some occasions, I've missed Mass for ten years straight (and by missed, I mean be entirely unable to pay attention because I always have a child under two in my lap, and maybe more than one). A peace has come over me about it by now, and I really can see that it's just a season, even if the season is going to last several more years. One could write a long, thoughtful essay on this quiet peace that finally begins to settle over a mother of many, if one had longer than the length of drinking one cup of coffee in the six o'clock morning hour to think and muse (which is what I promised my awake-right-now-children was all I would take away from them).

Maybe some day I can write that essay . . .


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