Here are a few pictures of the girls and our visit to my parents in Texas.

Grandpa and Samantha.

Blowing bubbles in the backyard.

Uncle John assisting with the water table thingy.

Swimming.

Yes, that is a polar bear in her mouth.

Sunflowers from my parent’s front yard.

She got herself into the wagon, except for a tiny push from me when her second leg got stuck.  I fear we have a climber on our hands.

The whole family.

The news so far for my Dad is good.  He is in the hospital and they did one dose of chemo (apparently there are four doses in each round, and they expect to do six rounds total) and that went very well, so they expect him to handle the treatment pretty well.  Mom says he looks and sounds better than he has, so that’s good news, too.  He should be home Thursday or Friday, and then he gets a couple of weeks off before the next round of treatment.  Thank you so much for all the prayers, I know they are helping!

Since my dad starts his chemo tomorrow, I thought it would be a good time to start a novena for him. I picked St. Joseph, since Dad used to teach industrial arts and enjoyed carpentry until he got sick. Maybe in a few months he will be able to get back to his shop!

Here is the novena I’m doing, but I found several others, so if you want to pray any of them along with me I would love the company!

To you, blessed Joseph, 
we come with confidence in this our hour of need, 
trusting in your powerful protection. 
Your loving service to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God 
and your fatherly affection for the Child Jesus 
inspire us with faith 
in the power of your intercession before the throne of God.

We pray, first of all, for the Church: 
that it may be free from error and corruption, 
and be a shining light of universal love and justice.

We ask your intercession for our loved ones 
in their trials and adversities, 
that they may be inspired by the love, 
obedience, and affection of the Holy Family, 
and be to each other a mutual source 
of consolation and Christian fidelity.

We ask your intercession, also, 
for our special need(s)... 

(Mention your intention here...),

and to keep us all under your protection 
so that strengthened by your example and assistance, 
we may lead a holy life, 
die a happy death, 
and come to the possession of everlasting happiness in heaven.

Amen.

So I apologize for that.  Life is crazy, even though “busy” might not be the most appropriate term.  Here’s the update,  and I promise that I’m going to make an honest attempt to get back on the blogging wagon.

I’m frantically trying to finish two sewing projects, plus the mending of diapers, except that we managed to leave all our cloth diapers, except the ones the girls were wearing when we left, at home.  And this week has taught me, in case I needed reminding, that I hate disposable diapers.  There is a whole post in itself there.  This is why I feel busy, despite spending most of my days at home on the couch.  (Ok, not most, but as much as I can manage.)

We’re visiting my parents this week, and Craig flew out of DFW to a teaching conference in Chicago on Tuesday, so the girls and I have taken over my parents’ house.  This has been a fun week, except that hanging over our heads is the fact that my dad appears to have lymphoma.  They’re getting the final diagnosis and setting up a treatment plan tomorrow, so many, many prayers will be needed in the coming months.  My dad doesn’t like a lot of attention, so the outpouring of good wishes he has gotten just from his friends and family has been a little overwhelming for him, but he’s hanging in there so far.

My mom’s knees, which were replaced one month ago tomorrow, are doing really well, so thank you for all the prayers in that area.  She is walking with a cane out of the house and without a cane at home.   My brother, on the other hand, is going to have surgery to clean up a couple of disks in his spine which are pushing on his nerves and causing pain in his leg.  Then he has to lose a good bit of weight so it doesn’t happen again.  Anybody with tricks to get someone very reluctant to start a serious (manageable) weight loss program, I’d love to hear them.

The girls are being themselves.  Lucy is everywhere at once, and bombarding Grandma and Uncle John with requests to “play play-doh”.  We went to the mall to ride the carousel yesterday, and that was fun.  She still refuses (usually) to use the potty, but she goes of her own accord to the bathroom to poop in her diaper.  I think it’s a step in the right direction.  Samantha’s scoot is getting faster (I tried to post a video, but it was too big and I don’t know how to fix that), so we’re having to watch her more closely than ever.  She scoots on her left shin and right foot, which is funny but very effective for her purposes.  She has had her four top front teeth come in all at once, and the last one is almost through after two weeks or so of suffering.  Her teether of choice is still whatever scrap of paper or book is within reach.

Merton has been left in the back seat of the car this week, and I have yet to go dig him out.  I’m not quite half way through the “Reader”, but I have every intention of finishing it.  I have gotten distracted by A Tale of Two Cities, which I am enjoying much more than I had expected.

What else?  I’m sure I’m forgetting lots of important things…but I guess that’s a good start.  We have a busy rest of the summer (for real) with Craig’s last week of summer camp, a visit from Fr. R.B., a wedding in Georgia, and then a road trip to visit friends.  Then Craig starts school, and I am *officially* a stay-at-home mom and homemaker.  (Not just a teacher on summer vacation.)  At that point I’m hoping to start researching the homeschooling stuff in earnest, so hopefully some of that will spill over onto here.

I leave you with the quote of the week from Lucy:

Lucy: I want [something she shouldn’t have – I don’t remember what]
Grandpa: I want a new car.
Lucy: [in all earnestness] Well, you can share Grandma’s car.

This approach never works for Craig, either.  But he doesn’t usually get such witty comebacks.  And now that they are both awake and I can only distract one of them with breakfast, adieu.

“Those who love God should attempt to preserve or create an atmosphere in which He can be found.  Christians should have quiet homes.  Throw out television, if necessary — not everybody, but those who take this sort of thing seriously.  Radios useless.  Stay away from the movies — I was going to say ‘as a penance’ but it would seem to me to be rather a pleasure than a penance, to stay away from the movies.  Maybe even form small agrarian communities in the country where there would be no radios, etc.

“Let those who can stand a little silence find other people who like silence, and create silence and peace for one another.  Bring up their kids not to yell so much.  Children are naturally quiet — if they are left alone and not given the needle from the cradle upward, in order that they may develop into citizens of a state in which everybody yells and is yelled at.  (pp. 301-302)

“…When you gain this interior silence you can carry it around with you in the world, and pray everywhere.  But just as interior asceticism cannot be acquired without concrete and exterior mortification, so it is absurd to talk about interior silence where there is no exterior silence. (p. 302)”

-Thomas Merton The Sign of Jonas, excerpted in Henri Nouwen’s Pray to Live, pp. 118-119.

Quiet children.  Now there’s an idea…   Not just shut up, but naturally peaceful and quiet.   But how to go about it?

On that note, Samantha is now crawling!  It’s not perfect crawling, she uses on knee and one foot, but it gets her across the room, and she can now crawl up to me and pull herself up a little on my pant leg and express that she wants something.  Along with crawling has come a banshee baby sound, which tends to mean, “Lucy took my toy from me again!”  But for the moment they are actually sleeping, and I can think about silence.

Lucy woke up last night (after she had come to our bed) saying, “I need my coffee!”  I told her to go back to sleep, but she got up, went to the living room (where Craig was still on the computer) and got her sippy-cup of chocolate milk with a splash of coffee and brought it back to the bedroom.  The she got up again and announced that she wanted water.  Before Craig could get it, she was saying very loudly, “No, I going to sleep!” but she had closed the bedroom door on her way out and couldn’t open it again.  All this woke up Samantha, and thus ended my half-hour or so of comfortable sleeping.

In other news, I am officially and thankfully unemployed.  (But, also thankfully, my paycheck doesn’t stop coming in until August!)  On Friday, Craig helped me clean out my classroom, we went out to lunch to celebrate, and then Craig went up to Shaw to do some of his own work.  Everyone at school gave me hugs and told me how sorry they were to see me go.  When I got home, Samantha was angry because she was still suffering from the cold she caught earlier in the week, and Lucy was angry because, well, she’s two.  And it was naptime, and she had already had a busy day.  And I thought, “Why am I leaving the company of kind adults for that of screaming children?”  Certain Roman bird-watchers might have something to say about this.

And yesterday I read several posts pointing out how wonderful motherhood is.  And today we tried (unsuccessfully – it rained) to take the girls to the zoo.  We got ice cream instead.  Lucy threw no fits until after 8 PM.  We napped well.  We ate well.  We played well.  We ate tomato and basil from our own garden.  This is why I’m staying home – so Lucy can paint in the back yard, and Samantha can sit on a blanket under a tree while I hang out the laundry.  So we can go to the zoo on a Tuesday.  So I can put band-aids on cuts, snuggle sleepy infants, and spend half the day with a child on my hip.

I think it will be a good life.  I am really, sincerely, looking forward to it, however much I may fear the responsibility.  Because now if something goes wrong, I have only myself to blame.  Two little souls have been entrusted to me so that I can help them find their way to their eternal home.  All those blogs I’ve been reading are right, what a privilege!  What faith God has in me to entrust two of his most prized possessions into my hands!  It is all making me very aware of all my own shortcomings and all the work I have to do to set even a decent, let alone a good, example for these little ones.  So I’m working on my prayer, and I’m asking for your prayers, because the enormity of this task feels overwhelming sometimes.  But what joy comes with this work!  I now work every day, all day, for joy incarnate.

My mom will be having both knees replaced this Friday (5/29) at 7:30 AM.  Please pray for a sucessful surgery and a speedy recovery!  (If you want to leave her a message here, that would be cool.  I know it would make her feel better to know there are lots of prayers being offered for her on Friday morning!)

She’s sick (again), which seems to slow her down and make her more grown-up in her speech and wittier.  Two very funny quotes from this weekend:

Craig arrives in the bedroom, and entices Lucy to take some cough syrup so she can sleep better.  She drinks it without protest.  We compliment her on her (uncharictaristic) compliance with our wishes.  As Craig starts to go, she says, in all seriousness,

“That wasn’t very good.”

The next morning Lucy stayed home from church since she still wasn’t feeling good.  Uncle Sean tried to tease her and get her to play, and she responded with a curt,

“Go to work!”

Which Sean quickly did.

I’m looking forward to lots more posts like this. : )

Lucy set up a tea party for us this morning.  The cups are for Mommy, Daddy, Josh, Ashley, me (Lucy), and “Man” (Elijah?).  Only Samantha and I were present to partake, however. 

The day’s laundry is already done.  This is a good day. : )

And yes, the fat little leg in the corner is Samantha.

We are experimenting to see how long we can survive without air conditioning. I’m shooting for Memorial Day. (We will get a respite on Mother’s Day, since Craig’s parents are coming over and I’m not going to impose this penance on anyone else!) We didn’t use it last month, and our electric bill was less than 1/3 of what it had been. We’ve been spending lots of time outside (in the shade mostly!) and leaving the house open for the breeze. It’s not terrible, just a little uncomfortable, and I have a new appreciation for those little breaths of cool air!

One benefit of being outside so much is all the nature we get to see in our own back yard. We found a frog in the laundry closet! Here is a pic, and we have a video of it making its escape, as well, but it’s too big to post at the moment. These are the sort of things I am really, really looking forward to with homeschooling.

My book list on the side has been updated. I’m on a homeschooling binge at the moment, re-reading Elizabeth Foss’s wonderful book, as well as a couple of new ones Craig decided to order from Amazon rather than get from interlibrary loan.

Our seniors are done with school, and we will be, too, at the end of the month. I just have one quiz and exams left to make!! This is all very exciting, and coupled with the encouraging homeschooling reading, is giving me back some of the energy I’ve been lacking lately.

Here are a few more pictures of the girls doing what they do.

Samantha attempting to eat grass.

Lucy drawing.  The Easter eggs she made at Grandma’s months ago have been recycled into Easter season decorations (on the wall behind her).  Most of them have now been removed and the stickers rearranged again (and again).

Lucy’s block house.

Samantha is teething like a mad woman and enjoys the pieces of Lucy’s puzzle.

Cutting play-doh

Clearly, it’s been a busy week.  : )