1. Preparing for Burial
On Saturday, I chose a burial plot for the cremated remains of my mother (who died five years ago) and my stepfather (who died two months ago), and we purchased it. This seemed a very fitting task for during the octave of the Feast of All Souls.
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| Mary standing on the plot |
2. The Octave of All Souls
Click here to read about our outing to pray at the cemetery.
3. Voting Day
On Tuesday, we went as a family to vote in local elections. It is neat having a child on the cusp of 11 years old because I am seeing a very real transition into the "dialectic" phase of education: so much questioning! This kid wants to know why and he's asking detailed questions about politics and government, a subject about which Chris and I enjoy chatting.
4. Frustrations
This week was rather tough. (But life is tough, right? When is it ever 'such an easy week!') It's been two months since my stepfather died and I'm struggling with that every day. It's been three months since I had the baby so I feel like I "should" be back on top of my game, but I can still barely get a heated-and-assembled dinner on the table, and I can't make time to exercise at all. School is hard. Housekeeping is hard. I need to find a way to maintain my peace.
5. Sibling Love
When all I can see is a physical mess in my house, or another simplistic meal served (instead of a home-cooked masterpiece), or some missed homeschool assignments, I can choose to look instead at the love our children are learning with their siblings in our home.
The children spent numerous hours this week playing in the dry leaf pile. They dug out five "homes" within the leaf pile and decorated them individually. They rode their bikes down the "roads" they scraped out of the leaf pile, and the older children taught the four-year-old traffic rules.
Last Sunday, our eight-year-old invented a new activity to entertain our two-year-old in which Mary draws Thomas' day out for him. It started when she "drew Mass," and then she added in every person who was there, and other interesting details.
6. Love for Mama
When I'm sad and all I can see are the ways I don't measure up, I can make some attempt to see me through my kids' eyes.
My four-year-old is so enamored with me at this (his) age. One morning, he came to my side of the bed twice in the wee hours, and I sent him away twice, telling him not to come back until the first number on the clock said "6." But then I couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up grumpily around 5:30. When Joseph heard me rustling, he rushed in, then collapsed in a pile of silent tears on our closet floor. Irritably, I said, "You've woken me up twice too early, and now I'm finally up and ready to take you downstairs and you're sad! What is going on?"
"Mama, I was so looking forward to laying with you for a snuggle, so I was waiting till six! And now I missed six and I won't get to lay with you!"
Oh dear. I told him that it was really only 5:30, so he hadn't missed six o'clock at all, and that we could have a good snuggle in bed.
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| Showing me the worm he caught |
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| Two boys who wanted to watch their baby brother |
One evening when John knew I'd had a really rough evening--my husband gone while I suffered through listening the infant or the two-year-old alternatively or simultaneously screaming and wailing for three hours straight, and nothing I did helped it stop--he left me some cookies to find on my laptop later that night. Sweet boy!
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| Speaking my love language! Food! |
7. Trickle Down Homeschooling
I don't know whether to laugh or cry . . . but my six-year-old and eight-year-old daughters have been teaching arts, crafts, and school to my four-year-old son for weeks now. Click here to see their publications.
For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.
Katherine your children are adorable. That is all.
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