First, the irony.  I am a large five months pregnant, and was scheduled to lector this weekend.  [Which is now last weekend.  The whole no-internet-at-home thing seriously delays posting sometimes.  Or often.  Or always.]  In case you forgot, or were wrestling small children during the first two readings, the first was the bit from Wisdom about a good wife; the second included the lines then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

So that was fun.  But that wasn’t what convinced me to drag out the ol’ laptop and actually bother to post.  It was the next bit of the reading from First Thessalonians:

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief.

For all of you are children of the light and children of the day.

And as I looked out at those listening (more or less…it was roughly eight AM), at the faces I had been watching through the pre-Mass announcements and the first reading, I thought how true that was.  These were the faces of the “children of the light,” whether they knew it or not.  Did they think those words were for them, if they even heard them?  I almost choked on the words, realizing their meaning.

“We are not of the night or of darkness.”

I was blessed to proclaim that for myself, and for everyone in the church with me, and honored to be included in their company.  I hoped, and hope, that everyone in the room this morning thinks of themselves this way.  Not perfect, of course, but living, struggling, and hoping in the light of Christ.

Lucy and her friend were practicing multiplication tables this morning (not my idea – I love having extra kids around sometimes!) and they decided it would be fun to make it into a Go Fish! game.  So they did.  And spent half an hour or so playing 6 Times Table Go Fish.

Just caught Clare explaining to another friend about how difficult it was for Michelangelo to carve David (“and if he made a tiny mistake, just this big, the whole thing would be ruined!”) and retelling the story of The Library Mouse.  Narration?  Done.

And as I type, Isaac is trying to put an apple slice in my pocket.  Earlier he was working on building train tracks.

In other news, I should be putting my first children’s book manuscript in the mail in the next couple of days.  Pray hard!  Asking St. Therese of Lisieux for special help, since it is about her, after all.  (And if you want a preview, let me know and I’ll send the text along.)

So it’s been a while…like almost three years…but yesterday morning was too much fun not to record.

Samantha was up before 7 asking for paints to finish the canvas she’d drawn on. (It’s a split image of a Holy Spirit dove and a crucifix.)

We got dressed, had breakfast, etc.

Then came the morning routine of Book of Saints (St. Jerome today!), Life of Fred, and today’s special: “How are mammals and fish different?” More work to do there the next couple weeks. And Story of the World part III starts next week, if the book ever gets here. My fault – I sent it to the old address and the post office can’t seem to forward it very quickly.

Then I came in from trying to change the alternator in the Honda (success! In case you were wondering) and found:

Clare running a ballet class (including stretching) for a 1-, a 2-, a 3-, and a 4 year-old,
Samantha engaged in Legos with a 5- and a 6-year-old,
And Lucy (who only does math with moping and sighing) happily doing Saxon math with her 9-year-old friend.

And apparently the older girls had the little girls color drawings of their hearts for the life-sized human body tracings they made of them. I know this because Clare’s heart was left out on the homeschool room table.

And the older girls are also on a crochet kick, which has taught them hand-eye skills, and taught Samantha that there is an end to the length of tape measures. And that they don’t work well anymore if you pull them too far.

Now the crochet chains are going into the tent plans.

Well.  We’ve made it through another week, somehow.  It was actually pretty laid back until today.  Took the girls to run errands, then the nurse called back and said it might be a good idea to bring Lucy in for the swollen bump on her arm (just a little infection, nearly healed, so no need to worry), and so we spent two hours at the urgent care clinic.  At lunch time.  And I still have to go pick up the medicine, since it wasn’t ready when we went and I wasn’t up to entertaining the girls any longer.  But we made it through lunch, and I’ve got the cranberry cookies in the oven.
Next we drop the girls with “Aunt B” so Craig and I can go to the first True Fasting meeting, which will be our Friday afternoons pretty much until Thanksgiving.  Then it’s to the Verrett’s for a back to school party.  If I’m still awake.  But like I said, the rest of the week was calmer.
We made C’s and clouds out of cotton balls (Sam made a bird nest instead.  You know Sam!)  Lucy worked on writing out number words and cursive, which was her favorite thing to do this week.

This week’s reading included:

illustrated by Barbara Cooney-

Emma by Wendy Kesselman

A tablet computer has reappeared in our house.  I am ambivalent about this, but it means I don’t have an excuse not to write anymore.  So we’ll see how I do.  For now:
Why I think I like Louisiana better than Texas:
Two words: heated restrooms at the rest stops.  Stop calling Louisiana backward, y’all.  At least we’ve (mostly) moved past outhouses.

http://catholicworkercommentary.blogspot.com/2011/12/moral-courage.html

We just came across this amazing technique on NPR this evening on how to peel a whole head of garlic in under 10 seconds…

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.

I guess I’m supposed to keep up with these things, but I just realized the About page hasn’t been updated since I started this blog 2 1/2 years ago.  So now it has.  Tempus fugit!

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