Bomb.

Recipe

1 teacher
6 students all in different grades
1 little boy
1 crazy toddler
1 really nice, organized, functional room

Directions:

Do school. Finish almost 9 hours later. Observe how room explodes into 1 really scary, disorganized, death-trap. Facepalm. Clean, or call in the students to clean. Repeat.

A Day

I thought I'd share some highlights of our day. I'm very much basking in the fact that we are getting a routine down, one the children seem to be responding to positively. We have recovered a stability in the household and the routine that we have not experienced in a good decade and I am holding fast to it with all my might.

I decided to do this blog post early in our school day. We made it to the schoolroom and had done prayers and the pledge (a different young'un gets to hold the flag each day) and they were getting down to business. I don't know how to put it except that when I saw this my heart just swelled:

What you don't see is the little one doing rhyming on the iPad under the back table with her little brothers!

I chose the music for the day. So far this week we have listened to classical and jazz. I was up for some acoustic music, so today's selection was...

I wanted to check the laundry, and Gilbert wanted to go see someone special downstairs, so while they were settled, I took him down and was met with this:

This man does NOT miss his commute

Back in the schoolroom, I helped my first grader whiz through her schoolwork while her sister worked on math...and worked on math...and worked on math... We even had a minute to open up a nice book to read about Christopher Columbus.

While the baby played...

Mom is very happy I no longer scream every time I come into the schoolroom.

But 11:00 approached and I knew they'd be getting hungry. I had something special in mind. I've moved the heavier meal to lunchtime so that my evenings are easier. Ever since we went to Ruby Tuesday on our way home from Georgia, one of my children has had a particular hankering for cheddar biscuits. She did not have them there--she is gluten-free, as are four more of us in the household. I have been making more of an effort to make the transition easier for her by making more interesting foods. With half of us off gluten, we just keep it out of the house completely. So on my menu today was...

Homemade gluten-free garlic-rosemary-cheddar biscuits!

The boys helped...

Note the clean table

and Daddy, having popped up to check in on everybody, and seeing his little girl upset with her math,
pulled up a chair and gave her a bit of a pep talk and some help...

"You can DOO EEET!" (not really)

 

Unfortunately, I forgot that I had the sorghum flour open in the next room, but Gilbert did not...

Whoops.

The biscuits were delicious with cold cuts and raw veggies with dressing.

Then the day became a bit more "normal." We had the little one with the head bump that created quite a nasty swell. We had more math issues. Cranky littles. More distractedness as the day wore on.  Squibbles and squabbles. You name it. However, for the first time in longer than I can remember, we actually had art projects made. My first grader made a (belated) birthday card for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and my third grader made a cat mask and a tiger mask. 

I cooked up a quick dinner and used up all of the homemade bone broth I had made from the PA Dutch Market chickens I got last weekend. That broth was jiggly! I attribute it to the chicken foot I threw in there. Good healthy stuff! Then we did something else we haven't done regularly since we moved into this house. We ate dinner as a family and had quite a charming discussion about the Gospel reading for today. When I say "charming," I really mean we had to convince children that the Beatitudes do not include, "Blessed are those who audition for The X-Factor," and that "Blessed are the hungry" may mean our helping of seconds "smashed down" should not still be comparable to the height of the great pyramid at Giza.

After dinner, I returned to the schoolroom to finish up the grading, which I completed shortly before 9. I then enjoyed a very short but enjoyable visit from my friends Bailey, Haagen and Dazs. I have no picture of that rendez-vous. They were gone in a flash! And so went our fifth day of school for this year. 

I am sure that for many it is hard to understand why anything in this particular blog would be noteworthy, but it may shed a light on what the last decade has been like to see that art projects are a novelty for us, as are science projects, reading to little ones, praying as a family, sitting down together as a family, schooling in the schoolroom, having a schedule, enjoying cooking again. We have lived in "survival mode" for so long that I nearly forgot the vision for our family that started us on this crazy path of Catholic homeschooling with a houseful of children. God-willing, may it only get better from here.  

So...what do I look like at the end of one of these days? 

 

Well I never said it was *easy*

Happy Birthday Mother Mary!!

Today, September 8, we Catholics remember and celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Besides St. John the Baptist, the Blessed Virgin is the only saint whose birthday we celebrate. Typically, we celebrate a saint around the date of his or her death.

For a bit of a spunky take on today's feast day, check out:
Widow's Weeds: 8 September - Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

If you're looking for the "meat," try:
EWTN's article on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I had butternut squash soup after one of my births too!

 

This picture above is my favorite representation of the event of the birth of Mary. If you know me, you likely can already guess at least one reason why. I have birthed eight babies. I have assisted at the births of approximately 40 more. St. Ann actually looks like she has just given birth in this picture. She is not sitting up, hands folded, intently gazing at her baby. She is exhausted, sunken into her pillow, her legs barely coming together and bent, her arms protectively guarding her body. The Blessed Virgin was her first baby, so more likely than not, the birth was a lengthy event. She's not even looking at her baby; she's looking, well, at nothing in particular just absorbing the shock of what her body just did. Next to her is me a lovely doula-looking woman, someone who is there to assist her and is feeding St. Ann my famous butternut squash soup something to give her a little strength and nourishment. So there you go. I don't love this picture for anything having to do with the Mother in Heaven we celebrate today. I love it because I see myself in it. Twice. But seriously, this, to me, is the most realistic of all of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary pictures I have seen out there. It makes me want to "skidoo" right into it and take that spot on the other side of her bed and hold her hand.

So anyways, before I sign off here and take a look at the midwifery information I am supposed to be studying for tomorrow's study group, I want to wish all of you a happy celebration. If you didn't know this was your Mother's birthday, it's not too late to give her a rosary bouquet of prayers, or bring the celebration to your kids with a little cake and ice cream. One friend of mine said last year she set out her statue of the BVM and her children played their instruments in front of it. Today at Holy Mass we made a spiritual offering and will be celebrating with treats later.

Not Catholic? Afraid it'll take away from Jesus' glory? I don't think He'll mind if you celebrate the birth of His most perfect creation, the one who uttered the "Fiat" that would change all of history and allow Him to take on the flesh whose blood would be violently and lovingly shed for the forgiveness of your sins. He'd probably ask for seconds on your cake and ice cream.