Gloria in Excelsis Deo: {SQT} Visiting Atlanta Served a Better Purpose

1. Soccer

We delayed our departure for Atlanta because Joseph had his last soccer game and his pizza party that morning. He was excited as a five-year-old boy can be!

Meanwhile, in the afternoon, John had a playoff game (which his team won!) and, best of all, he earned the Captain's Armband that week. Each week, the coach gives the Captain's Armband to a player who exemplified some particular moral virtue or effort in that week's game, and the player gets to keep it for a week. This is an honor earned by merit, not something Coach is rotating through all his players, and sometimes an excellent player would earn it two weeks in a row. Well, this week, my eleven-year-old earned the armband and it was worth more to me than any goal he could have kicked.

2. Seating Auditions

Simultaneously as the soccer games were Mary's seating auditions for orchestra, so Chris and I had to divide and conquer. Mary is happy with her seating placement and we are happy with her diligent hard work!

Photo courtesy: Markus Kuncuro

3. Atlanta: The Best Laid Plans

Our trip to Atlanta was a comedy of errors all overshadowed by a major medical event that caused the cancellation of my in laws' marriage blessing at Mass and their big 55th anniversary party.

It drove me to dark, doomed thoughts when my baby screamed his head off for the last 90 minutes of our long drive, arriving so beyond his bedtime at ten p.m.

It made me think I would go loony when I had almost nursed him to sleep and Chris marched into the room to tell me that our HVAC wasn't working, that he'd called the hotel maintenance man, and that he'd be arriving in two minutes to work on the panel, which was right next to the bed in which I was lying with my nearly asleep baby.

It made me feel positively acerbic when my baby woke for the day at 5:08 the next morning, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, even though he had not fallen asleep till six hours earlier.

But God ordained that we would get to be there to visit our loved one in the hospital instead of being comfortably and too-far away at home.

That Sunday, we visited our old parish and got to see the children's godfather.

Three monkeys on a luggage cart

The drive home on Monday morning gave Chris and me a rare chance to talk without interruption and for more than five minutes, so we talked through all kinds of parental issues, and planned our Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a couple of upcoming trips, as well as plotted out some dreams for the future.

4. Voting Day

We took a whole family field trip to vote on Tuesday . . . six kids in the steady rain . . . a great time was had by all!

5. Tennis

Mary tried out for the more advanced tennis class (that John has been in) and was invited to join by Coach! She has been practicing in her free time to gain the skills to be ready, and she is so excited about what she will be learning in her new class.

David (14 months) running around in an empty court during tennis lesson

6. Homeschooling

7. Landscaping

John mows lawns in the summer and now he's tried his hands at raking leaves in the fall! Leaves are a serious business in our wooded neighborhood and this week--instead of having recess breaks--John raked up sixteen 75-gallon bags of leaves from our neighbor's yard.

Three-year-old Thomas got right to business in imitation of his big brother, donning the safety ear muffs in order to "mow" the lawn.

The fall is bringing not only major leaves but major Wildlife Sightings to our property: deer! We are seeing deer in our yard or directly across the street almost daily. Last Tuesday at dusk, as we walked home from tennis through the rec club meadow, four children and I suddenly froze and realized we were standing in the midst of a herd of deer! That is actually a dangerous predicament, so we proceeded very carefully to get through them and get home. And tonight we spotted a buck on our driveway!

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