Gloria in Excelsis Deo: {SQT} The Thanksgiving Edition

1. Fall/Winter Annuals

On Friday and Saturday, I planted 58 fall/winter annuals at the front and side porches. It's always a big job, but made more pleasant by having little helpers and having musical accompaniment (Mary practicing her violin nearby)!

2. Assigning Dinners

My latest and greatest ideas is not simply to have helpers cooking dinner but to assign one dinner weekly to John (almost 12) and one to Mary (10). So, I began last week and it was a true help!

I am now having either one of the older children prepare a picnic dinner while I am at tennis with the younger set; then the older set walks over to the courts for their class and I walk in the door to dinner laid out for me and the younger set.

On Friday night, my back was so sore from planting annuals that Mary was spared my sitting in the kitchen giving her more instructions than she needed to prepare spaghetti with red sauce, (frozen) eggplant cutlets, salad, and garlic bread. I was lying on the sofa while she cooked and only answered a couple of her questions.

3. Hospital Visit

It was Monday morning at eight o'clock and we were gathering in the dining room for family prayers to start our school day when the latest, greatest accident occurred. Thomas (3) was simply climbing into a dining room chair--not at the top of bookshelves or ten feet up in trees where I regularly find him, and he was not even standing atop the chair--when he slid down and landed with his neck on the sharp, brass foot of the dining table.

He began screaming, I held him and comforted him and tried to continue with our saying prayers, reading the daily Mass readings, and singing a hymn, but the screaming continued unabated for fifteen minutes. That is when Chris and I decided Thomas needed to be taken to the emergency room, and it was probably another ten to fifteen minutes of his wailing before they were driving off down the road.

They took big-sister Mary along as she is his Second Mommy and I was so very grateful for the flexibility of homeschooling because she was a great entertainer and comfort to him.

It turns out that our little fella has a fractured collarbone: that's a new injury among our children! The doctor said that a collarbone simply has to heal, and that, while sometimes they will prescribe an arm sling to immobilize the area, a three-year-old is not going to submit to that, so they sent him home with nothing but advice to take pain killers as needed while healing.

Thomas has been rather pathetic walking around so gingerly. He can't climb into a chair, into his bed, or onto the potty without help, and we must lift him slowly from his bottom, no hands under his armpits. He asks me, "When will my collarbone go away?"

4. Youth Orchestras of Charlotte Concert

Our family experienced an ethereal evening attending the Youth Orchestras of Charlotte Family Concert in which Mary was performing with Sinfonia Strings: click here to read all about it.

Photo courtesy: Markus Kuncuro

5. Shoe Area Improvement

I made a change to our shoe area by buying metal shoe racks to hold the shoes, thus freeing up and removing one of the IKEA cube bookshelves. It was better than some solutions but less-than-ideal to be throwing all the shoes into bins:

kids don't want to do the extra step of pulling out a bin and sliding it back into place, so they just don't do it
they spread dirt and dust on the other shoes
the dirt and dust gathers at the bottom of the bin
the person responsible for putting away shoes has to know who owns each shoe

I'm hoping the new racks will aid with all those problems. Plus, I do not care if each child has his/her shoes neatly on the same rack. I just want the shoes paired and on the rack: that's it! Even a 3- or 4-year-old child could do that chore.

I moved the old shelf into the boys' room where they needed more shelf space for more books.

6. David

Guarding the bacon last Sunday

David woke up--happily the morning after Mary's concert--with a fever and he burned at 102 for about 24 hours. I sure was grateful for my older kids cooking several Thanksgiving dishes because David just wanted me to hold him and nurse him all day long; I even got out my old Maya wrap, which I haven't used with him in months.