Homeschooling journal:
Socialization practice today – we took the girls to youth group. Also learned that Red 40 may be a problem for Lucy. The Kool-aid at dinner made her nuts. But she is usually nuts at youth group, so I never can be sure.
Also watered the garden and picked a couple of bell peppers, and explained to Lucy why we let some of them stay on the plant and get bigger before we pick them.
…of various sorts has been ours lately. I’ll have to come back to the posts on the road trip, but here’s what’s going on more recently.
Lucy has finally given in and decided that she is, in fact, old enough to poop on the potty. We are jubilant. And it’s consistent, it’s been only one diaper since we got back from Fargo. We even tried sleeping without diapers for a couple of nights (at her request), but that went less well. Apparently if she sleeps in a diaper, she waits until she gets up to pee, and if she doesn’t, well, she doesn’t. But maybe soon.
I’m pretty sure this will take several days to explain, in part since my writing time is now divided by a number of thank-you notes which must be written with all haste.
Which seems like as good a place as any to start. We were very, very blessed by the generosity of friends and strangers on our trip to Fargo, ND, this past week. We were gone from Tuesday morning to the following Tuesday night, and only spent one of those nights away in a hotel. So pending the thank-you notes, here are the people to whom we owe our very awesome, very long trip.
Well, it’s been 3,200 miles, but we’re finally home again. And we have lots of stories, but it’s bedtime, so here’s just a little something to spark you interest.
We had the privilege of staying at a Catholic Worker farm the other night, and when we got up in the morning, I told Lucy to look out the window at the chickens. She said,
“Look at that bird singing (=crowing)! That’s the one we’re going to milk!”
You’ll be happy to know we straightened a few details out for over the course of the morning.
More to come.
We were visiting at Chris’s mom’s house while he and Kelly were in town, and sitting down to white beans and rice with the three of them and Granny, when Lucy raced into the room.
Lucy: “The step-mother is here!”
I start to ask one of those motherly questions which draws out the story behind her pretending, but before I can form the words…
Lucy: “I’m going to kill her!”
And she was gone again. I turned red, shocked, and sent Craig to deal with this. He deals with football players and wrestlers and marine-wanna-bes on a daily basis, after all. Apparently Lucy was protecting her friend, Meadow, from the step-mother, who was going to hurt her.
It has been a week of visitors. We managed to have someone over for a meal every day last week. After Taylor’s wedding, my mom and brother came over, so they were here Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. (Their visit also included a shopping trip to the French Quarter and a trip to the Aquarium.) On Wednesday Craig’s brother and his girlfriend came for dinner and so that Craig could help Sean with calculus. Thursday’s dinner included some of the usual suspects, Theresa and Paige. (Eric Parrie – I am calling you out publicly for standing us up!) Friday Fr. R.B. spent the night. Which I guess means I could count Saturday breakfast, too, but then Theresa brought a little girl she was babysitting over to play and have lunch. Seven days in a row!
You have to read this. I was crying I was laughing so hard, while trying not to wake up the almost-sleeping parrot-monkey. It will make sense if you read it.
http://inspiredtoaction.com/2010/07/survivor-suburbia-the-grocery-store-with-children-challenge/
I finally, after months, decided to read a blog of two today. This article was first, and it came at just the right time.
Well, it has finally happened, that rite of passage all mothers must undergo. (It does happen to everyone, right?) One of my children has fallen into the fountain at the mall. You know, the one with the plants around it, strategically placed next to the winding stairs, the lovely view from which we always bypass because I am not Superwoman enough to drag a stroller up them.
Lucy: “If God was made of glass, and had a thing in his back so you could wind Him up, like a wind-up bunny, then he could go up to the sky and come back down from the sky.”
And later in the same car ride…
Craig: “Have you ever tried to talk to Jesus?”
Lucy: “No, I’m too shy of him.”
Loyola Kids Book of Heroes: Stories of Catholic Heroes and Saints Throughout History by Amy Welborn
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks (Penguin Classics) by Unknown
The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day by Robert Ellsberg
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the by Sam Kean
