{SQT} New House Blessing

1. Hosting on Sunday

We hosted some friends for dinner on Sunday (three adults and one toddler) and it was a refreshing surprise to discover how nice it is to talk to adults. Virtually all of our hosting is with peers who have similarly larger or more huge families, so Chris and I have forgotten what it is like to do anything but supervise hoards of children constantly. Talking to adults is wonderful!

God willing, we will have many decades of quiet conversations with adults and without swarming little ones anymore . . . and we will miss it. But for now, it would be nice to get to talk to adults quietly more often than once every few years!

2. House Blessing on Wednesday

On Wednesday afternoon, we had a priest over to bless our new home and another family joined us as well to mark the occasion.

Pro tips on how to get a house clean: Pick up the house in every spare moment for days and lock up all toys. Hire beloved housecleaner to come that very morning. Meanwhile, take all children out of the house all morning (dental appointment, cleaning the van at the car wash, meeting Daddy for lunch at McDonald's), come home just in time for wee ones to NAP and older ones to WATCH TELEVISION AND NOT MOVE . . . until guests walk in the door at 3:00!

The ancient Catholic ceremony involves starting outside and saying prayers throughout the house while sprinkling holy water (and exorcising!) in every room and closet of the home.

We also buried St. Peter the Martyr's blessed palms in the four corners of the property as protection against storms.

We ended the occasion with a festive, loud spaghetti dinner before Chris and John had to dash to hockey practice. Never a dull moment or much time to linger!

3. Curious George

Thomas is newly four and I am reminded now that I personally find four to be an incredibly challenging age. He makes me want to cry every day.

"Doing school"

Basically, four-year-olds are like Curious George personified, only I'm not a single Man with the Yellow Hat with a one-on-one supervision ratio of the little monkey. I'm outnumbered six kids plus the duties of homeschooling to only one of me, so the four-year-old gets away from me for even five minutes and wreaks havoc with his genuine curiosity.

Very recent examples of Thomas' creative explorations include but are not limited to:

• Dumping a bottle of White Out on the brand new carpet
• Writing on the wall many times on the brand new paint in this home
• Squirting an entire tube of toothpaste and emptying a bottle of Compound-W wart remover and smearing them over the entire bathroom, which he then flooded
• Finding a book of matches, stealing away to his bedroom, and lighting the match by sticking it in an electrical outlet
• Slid down the banister numerous times, despite his older brother falling off of it from the second floor and necessitating a trip to the hospital: lesson not yet learned by the younger guy
• Taking a butter knife and sawing a deep, clean line in one of our dining room chairs
• Giving his stuffed animal kitty a bath, soaking the toy, numerous towels, and flooding the powder room
• Spraying insect repellent (left out by a sibling!) all over one of his big brother's special Lego creations, which caused later investigation and for all of us to learn that DEET actually melts plastic
• Sneaking out the front door repeatedly and hanging out in the cul-de-sac (and also allowing his toddler brother to sneak out the open front door)
• Feeding his big brother's fish by dumping a lot of feed into the tank (thankfully, fish did not eat themselves to death)

Yes, I'm supervising him and trying to implement the rule that he is always in the same room as me, all day, every day, but I can't achieve that level of perfection. Yes, we lock all doors at all times and have door alarms on every door. Yes, we are disciplining him every single time. Yes, he will outgrow it, too, but in the meantime . . .

I just want to cry.

4. Reading

This week I finished Benedict Groeschel's "Arise from Darkness" (Ignatius Press). It was conversational and homey, not "traddie" but definitely orthodox, and I appreciated its timing in my life. A good friend gave it to me spontaneously, her not knowing why the Holy Ghost prompted her, but I do.

I also finished "Your Affectionate Daughter, Isabella," a fictionalized genealogy of Charlotte's local founding families (the Torrences, Lattas, and Davidsons), which I picked up earlier this summer at the kids' historic recreation camp. I highly recommend it to any locals because it's just amazing and astonishing to watch local history come alive!

Rarely one to read anything lighthearted, I am two-thirds through Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932), having started less than one week ago. I am a big fan of dystopian science fiction and have long owned this on my shelf, but for some reason, never read it. It is prescient, chilling, and gripping. I have "no time" to read anymore, but I'm carrying this around and reading it every second I can.

5. School

Amidst so many schedule changes, we keep chugging along with school as best we can. I find it very frustrated not to live by a strict schedule--math should be done from 9:00 to 10:00 no matter what--so I try to remind myself constantly (often to no avail) that we are living our family life first, not being held hostage to an exterior school. Our goal is to do school diligently and seriously in the time/cracks remaining amidst the necessities just to care for a family (plan meals, shop, cook, clean house, do family chores, have family time together daily, practice our faith with all its commitments throughout each day, do our exercise/sports/getting fresh air). We do not want to make school our god to the detriment of everything it takes to raise six children.

Yet I must remind myself of this constantly and still don't feel it, I just know it.

Joseph finished Level 1 of All About Reading, having started it in Kindergarten and needing just a few more weeks this year to get to the end. On to Level 2!

Margaret (8) continues to hone her art, but, like a true artiste, suffers continual self-doubt.

6. Sports

Scottish Dance classes resumed this week, although I have no pictures of the dancing or of all the younger siblings enjoying playground time.

Friday will be the evening of John's hockey games now that he is on the recreational league. We attended his first one as a family, although the Friday nights will still be practices for three to four weeks until the large group is given jerseys and divided into teams.

Cheering squad

David (2) kept yelling for the whole rink to hear, "Hi, John! Yaaaaaay!"

7. Medical Stuff

In the last three weeks, we've been to urgent care three times, I think, the hospital emergency room twice, and taken six kids to the dentist. Latest and greatest was Mary fracturing her wrist while skateboarding.

Regarding the prayer request last week, keep it up, please.

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