Monday, August 30, 2010

I forgot to blog.

Not forgot, exactly.  I've just been trying to spend less time on the computer talking about doing things and more time actually doing things.

The first day of school brought an itch to record the occasion somewhere - so here I am.

What I accomplished today:  

Completed introductions for all subjects to all students before 3pm CST.
Put ingredients for red beans & rice dinner into slow cooker.
Drank plenty of fluids.
Loaded the dishwasher.
Distributed popsicles.

What I did not accomplish today:

Laundry
Dusting, sweeping, or vacuuming
Dog grooming (see previous item)
Painting
Lawn care and maintenance

I have a feeling the 'did not accomplish' list is going to remain fairly constant for the next several months at least.  Teaching all five kids at once is .. uhm.. a challenge.  More accurately - trying to teach four kids while Peter thwarts my every attempt is a challenge.

But, gosh, he's cute.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Well, the turkey thawed in time... Everyone is well-fed and we had a fantastic day.

My favorite thing about Thanksgiving? Turkey makes little ones go to bed early. :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thanksgiving 'Uh-Oh' Moment


Uhm.. What day is it again?

We have a turkey. This is good. We have actually had our turkey since Saturday evening. That's probably the earliest we have ever gotten a turkey for Thanksgiving Day. This is also good.

Problem: The turkey is frozen solid.

Oh I know - it's only Tuesday - there's plenty of time to thaw the 28 pound bird in time for roasting! Right? Absolutely. That's exactly what I was thinking... Exactly what I was thinking all day today when I wasn't actually thawing him out because I have plenty of time....

It's 9:23 pm on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. It just occurred to me that I will need to make the stuffing for our meal Wednesday afternoon. No wait - that didn't just occur to me because I already knew that. What DID just occur to me is that tomorrow is Wednesday. This has everything to do with the 28 pound turkey-shaped chunk of ice in my refrigerator.

I need to extract the giblets bag from the turkey in order to make my stuffing.

That sound you hear is the sound of me sobbing quietly into my sleeve.

I'm heading off to the kitchen now with a hair dryer and an ice-pick. I'll let you know how it turns out.

What I learned in homeshool...

Geo & Wm at the mall trying not to look too embarrassed to be seen with their mother.

I have come to truly appreciate and be thankful for being blessed with the means and opportunity to homeschool. I have always said that we are fortunate... or blessed... or that I'm grateful. To be honest, I think all of that was mostly lip-service. Even as I said it I didn't really understand what a gift I have been given:

I am actually raising my own children.

I am there for every scraped knee... every first word... I'm there for the arguments and I'm there for the moments of self-doubt. I get to share in every triumph and every new discovery. Yeah - okay - so it also means that the responsibility for whatever goes wrong sits squarely on my shoulders.... It's not like we mothers don't end up with the lion's share of the blame in our modern public-schooled society anyway... At least I get a little heads up when it comes to my parental shortcomings and I'm not going to be informed of them at a teacher's conference or in a post-it note stuck to a book bag.


Geo chugging cappuccino. I keep trying to explain the concept of 'sipping' to him - to no avail.

I have gotten to spend real time with George and William. I feel as if I have actually gotten to know them - the people they are... Whether it's one of our tangents during instruction time or chatting during a trip to the coffee shop on Friday -- I wouldn't give up this time we have together for anything. And I keep asking myself -- when would we do this if they were in school?


William @ our coffee shop hangout.

Sad to say - but I really do feel like I missed a few years of their lives. Back in the old school days my relationship with them was composed of checking clothing sizes to order uniforms, grilling them about homework assignments, feeding them, doing their laundry, rushing them through the door in the morning, and putting them in bed in the evening. I felt like the boarding school house mother. Now I'm sure - quite sure - that other parents are perfectly capable of having a deeper relationship than that with their school-going kids. The important thing here is that I have realized that I was not.

I promised Geo that I would stop posting his pictures on my blog without his express consent when he turns thirteen. With his birthday practically around the corner - I find that I must take this opportunity to post whatever I have on my desktop.

I know it won't last forever. I still look forward to the day when all my fledglings take off on their own. I hope they learned what they needed from their time with me.

In the meantime, I am learning so very much from my time with them. And there it is - the big realization: All this time I thought that our Lord was calling me to homeschool because there were things that only I could effectively teach my children.... How could I not have understood that what was missing from our family was all that the children had to teach me?
I was just reading back through all of those other homeschool posts on this blog where I stated confidently that I had finally 'figured it out' or 'found our groove'. I couldn't help but notice that those statements were always followed by a blog silence of several months before being canceled out by a red-faced 'okay, so maybe not' post.

So there has been another blog silence of several months - but this time.. No. Really. I mean it this time.....

It's been an excellent year for us so far.

We have taken the week off for the Thanksgiving holiday and I am really missing school this morning. I even took out the Latin flashcards earlier and thought I could casually work them into conversation or something.... But the boys are too smart for me. A holiday is a holiday.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Happy Birthday, Peter!!

My how time flies... Peter has turned two. He had a great time today and I'm proud to report that all of his siblings genuinely tried to make his day special. Way to go, kids.

Inspiration for the week.....

In case you haven't seen it:

The Best Photo of the Month by a long shot

I would give anything for my boys to have a chance to participate in something like this... To be surrounded by young people who are proud enough of their religion to go public - en masse. Simply splendid.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!


Only the girls dressed up in costume this year for the trick or treating thing. The older boys stayed home to help with distributing candy while Peter stayed home to keep things interesting. Teething baby + 400 trick or treaters in your front yard = mildly stressful.

Emily's costume deserves another photo. She loved her wig.


Ghost cookies have been a family tradition here since 2002. We make the batches together - the kids have fun either cutting them out or shaping them by hand and are always amazed at just how simple it is to give their ghost some extra personality with chocolate chip eyes. The tradition continues with the eating -- before eating each ghost cookie we offer a prayer for a soul in purgatory.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Zero tolerance?

The recent news story concerning young Zachary the Cub Scout versus the Christina School District in Newark, Delaware hit close to home for me.

When I was a young girl - about Zachary's age - I was called into the principal's office for bringing something dangerous to school: Explosives. Really. It sounds pretty bad when I think about it. I was eight or nine years old and a teacher discovered gunpowder-packed explosives in my pencil bag.

Here's the story:

Back then my family and I spent most of my summer vacation at our 'cabin' out in what was then mostly woods. It was a gorgeous place on a lake. There were few people and plenty of wildlife and those summers brought some of the best memories of my entire life. One of the highlights was our annual 4th of July celebration. Dwelling out in a rural county meant there were no codes restricting fireworks -- so we would buy big boxes full of them and my father would put on a show for all of us. By the time I was eight - Dad had taken to letting me 'organize' all the pyrotechnics for him... Although I still wasn't able to light them myself -- that was Dad's job. And he did. Often upside down. But that's another story for another time....

Anyway - taking my organization job seriously (as I always did) I searched for a logical solution that year when I discovered that a the box that had contained a bunch of firecrackers had fallen apart and was spilling the little tiny firecrackers all over the place. I selected a zippered plastic
pencil bag from my room. Perfect! Not only were the firecrackers all in one place - but they were protected from the damp July air and the heavy dew in the grass near the lake.

Weeks of summer bliss passed until it was time to return to school. I was returning for fifth grade at St. John Elementary School and excited as always. I loved school. I loved school supplies and books and blackboards and all of those other school trappings... And I loved the good sisters who taught us.

A few days into the school year - we were coloring a back-to-school picture for the hallway. As Sister made her rounds through the classroom ... she stopped at my desk long enough to cause me to look up into her face. She looked puzzled as she asked me to grab my pencil case and follow her. She took me to Sister Michael's office - the principal. I suppose I should have been afraid... Sister Michael certainly didn't have a reputation as a warm and cuddly sort of nun -- but I personally liked her. She had never been anything but kind to me despite the gruff exterior. Every time I ran into her in the hallways on one of my errands for the teachers she would glare at me menacingly at first - then hand me a scapular or medal or holy card and pat me on the head before sending me on my way. And so - I had no real reason to be afraid. I simply wondered what the unexpected meeting could be about.

My teacher had entered the office ahead of me so that when I arrived and sat down as instructed, Sister Michael was holding my pencil bag out in front of her like it was a stinky dead fish. She demanded to know why I had brought something so dangerous to school. I suppose the completely clueless look on my face seemed sincere enough - so she then reached into the pencil bag and produced a single crayon-stained firecracker! Mystery solved. I happily explained that I must have missed it when cleaning out my pencil bag for school.

It was apparently not the best explanation. She then asked me to explain how I went about acquiring such a thing in the first place which I also explained - though not so happily this time.... I could tell by her tone and her expression that I had done something terribly wrong that I didn't quite understand. She asked me if I knew it was against the rules to bring this dangerous thing to school. It wasn't an easy question to answer. In theory I did - in reality I didn't think of the thing as dangerous. It was just a thing left in my pencil case. It wasn't in anyone's hands... it was nowhere near an open flame... Besides - it was missing its fuse which might have explained how it ended up left behind in the pencil bag after the 4th of July. Most importantly, I had no idea I had brought this dangerous thing to school. Certainly I had no intention of doing anything with it.

None of this thought process was shared with Sister Michael, however. Instead I simply answered that I didn't know it was there and I didn't realize how dangerous it was. She softened only a little as she read the rules to me from some book in her office. The rules were full of big words that I didn't understand but she took the time to explain that this little firecracker was an explosive - which was specifically mentioned in those serious-sounding rules. With that an enormous light went off. It was an explosive. I never thought about it as an explosive. I thought explosives were bombs like on Starsky and Hutch. Realizing that I had inadvertently brought a bomb to school... I was sure my life was over.

But my life wasn't over. Sister Michael took the firecracker and asked that I very, very carefully check my school things in the future and that I never bring anything like that firecracker into the school again. I assured her that I wouldn't and apologized whole-heartedly. With that - I was sent back to class. It was over. I don't even know if my parents were ever officially notified of the incident... I just know that I never forgot what happened and my shock and embarrassment that day.

I also know that I had an enormous amount of love and respect for Sister Michael and my teacher from that day on. I knew for sure that they were reasonable people. I felt that they could be trusted with the decisions they made - because they took the time to listen and use their judgment. Those are some complex conclusions for an eight or nine year old to draw - especially for an eight or nine year old who previously was unaware that a firecracker was an explosive... But I was a pretty complex kid.

That's my story. That's the story I think about when I read stories like Zachary's. How different would my life be today had St. John's implemented a zero-tolerance policy when I was in school? Would that firecracker have led to reform school and the associated trauma and stigma? Would my entire educational career have bottomed out as a result of that firecracker?

Terrifying thought.

Oh - and yet another reason why we homeschool.