K4J

So, another new thing we're doing this year is K4J or, "Kids for Jesus".  My friend Misty decided to lead it and now, one evening a month, we join a group of seven or eight other kids and their moms to learn about the next mission that will draw us closer to Jesus.  I missed last month's meeting because Chris and I were in New Orleans--fortunately, Jack was able to take the girls--but I was there this time to witness the raising of Lazarus and to hear about the importance of forgiveness.

Misty did an A+ job with the skit, the games, the craft and the snack, all of which fit in with the theme.  The three Doyle dames who participate--Mia, Grace and Sophie--loved it and have been reminding me of things they learned ever since.

A funny side note--Jack and Barbara were over Sunday night and Jack was asking the girls about their K4J meeting.  He told us a related story about Grace.  I don't remember this but I trust him.  Apparently one time while we were visiting them in Denver, the story of Lazarus was read at Mass.  They probably dramatized it a bit because that was the style of their church.  Later, back at home, Little Grace, who couldn't have been more than two, stood outside Nick's cage saying, "Nick, come out!"  Which goes to show what sponges little kids are.  (Nick did not come out--he's a bit ornery though so maybe he just needed a little sprinkling with Holy Water.)

Did you know that Lazarus was a Longhorn?

Lying down listening to the story of Jesus' healing of the paralytic

Jesus healed his soul first by forgiving his sins and then his body

Sophie takes a turn riding the stretcher to Jesus

Blurry photo of Sophie's forgiving heart

We can't wait till next month!  Thank you, Mrs. Cey!

Bling and Things

One of Grace's birthday gifts was a jewelry kit full of colorful beads.  On Friday morning, she and her sisters sat down at the kitchen table under the supervision of big sis' Madeleine and had at it.  They all made something fun but I especially liked the necklace Grace made for me.  I wore it proudly when we all went for ice cream later--a special treat in honor of my very first pay check of the semester (now, on to Christmas gifts!)

"Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with Mi-a"

Another something new--my hair!  Saturday morning, I decided it was time to go shorter and, to paraphrase a line in When Harry Met Sally, when I decide I want shorter hair, I want it cut--as soon as possible (for the full effect, you have to say it like Billy Crystal).  My impatience has even caused me to take up scissors myself on occasion--very, very bad idea.  Anyway, C and I got cuts at a new place where we had a gift card.  The best thing was that we both like Chris' hair so hopefully he won't be chop shop hopping anymore.  (above photo by one of our photographers-in-training--all of the girls like to take pictures so we sometimes let them compete for best photo of the same subject)

Life Chain

What you get when you choose life

So it seems my Star Wars analysis on law was timely.  October is Respect Life month and this morning at church, Father Linh spoke plainly of the supremacy of the Law of God, though he used another word--Truth.  He observed that these days, many people want to invent Truth rather than submit to it.  His normally gentle voice boomed out at the congregation as he plainly stated that God's Truth about marriage is that it is heterosexual and permanent.  He said that God's Truth about life is that it begins at conception and ends at natural death and that God made Eve to be the mother of the living, not the dead.  He said that twice.  Abortion is wrong.  Period.  He encouraged us to participate in the pro-life activities planned for the month beginning with this afternoon's Life Chain*. 

We've participated in the Life Chain before but this year, we felt like Norm walking into Cheers.  So many of our friends, neighbors and even family--Jack--were there.  We got many encouraging thumbs up and honks from motorists and only one very spiteful exhortation to "Kill all the babies.  Go abortion."  (That was from a car full of college age guys.)  

David, our neighbor from across the street, observed that the families with all of their young children had brought the best signs of all.  I agree.  Thank you to everyone who participated--wherever you are.  For one hour today, we made a chain of love across our nation.  What a beautiful thing.

Double-fisted...

...and leading his little men to defend life

*I am so grateful for priests like Father Linh who speak the Truth in love.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Your words encourage us so.

Isn't it Lovely?

Some of my dear friends (you know who you are) have been giving me a hard time about the idyllic picture I've been painting of homeschooling lately.  Children lying in piles peacefully reading big, thick books, students doing work without being asked, siblings teaching each other, little catechists instructing with alphabet cookies.  All we need is a little kumbayah playing in the background....life is good.  Ahhhhhh......

Wednesday wasn't quite like that.  Girls, asked to clean their room, cried and fought and spent two 30 minute periods in the corner.  Small toddler menace ransacked Daddy's bathroom drawer, destroying his deodorant and hair gel, hiding his brush and nail clippers and emptying a whole bottle of hand sanitizer over her head.  Pint sized pixie expressed her dissatisfaction with whatever her sisters were doing to her by ejecting piercing screams every ten minutes.  Girls back in bed at 10:30 AM because Mommy has "had it".  A trip to the grocery store where Mommy uses one hand to gather groceries, the other to hold down the toddler who's trying to jump out (why don't those seat belts ever work?) while telling her sisters "please stay off the cart--I'm trying to steer" at least one hundred times.  Then there's the fact that we're a month into the school year and I still haven't quite gotten our routine or systems down.  

So, no, homeschooling is not always peaceful, blissful or easy.  When we first started, a day like Wednesday would have thrown me into the loop of asking, "What are we doing wrong?"  "Would the kids be better off in school?"  "Why is it that Perfect Family Z can do it and we can't?"  I guess my expectations have changed because now, having "Wednesday" days seems normal to me.  And you know, what?  Perfect is for heaven.  Down here, trying to be perfect makes me stressed out and boring.

Wednesday night, some friends came over to hang out and talk about a retreat for homeschooling moms that we're having in February.  I told them that in exchange for a drink, they'd have to cough up a complaint (or three) about homeschooling.  I didn't want to be the lone whiner.  We had fun laughing at our kids and at ourselves.  Thank God for good friends who remind us, "we're all in this together" whether we're homechooling or not.

Rock-a-Bye Daddy

Today's Magic Moment is brought to you by Shell's 9/80 benefit

I'm glad the lullaby CD worked on someone

Back to a Galaxy Close, Close By

So, I promised five parts to my "Star Wars Chronicles" but my faithful editor has informed me that my fifth installment is a bit tangential so I will save that for another time.  I had fun playing literary analyst again.  Thank you to anyone dedicated enough to read all of it.  Some of you may have been scratching your heads wondering, "What is she talking about?  It's just a story."  Of course, there really is no such thing as "just a story".  Even a book as simple as The Pigeon Wants a Puppy is instructive as well as entertaining.  Anyone can play the analysis game.  The important thing is to abide by the big rule--stick to the text.  While a sentence like "and then his grandmother took him to the pet store" may fill a reader with fond memories of the time Grandma took her to get her first pet and then an ice cream cone, those feelings are only relevant if they are supported by the text.

Another no-no in literary analysis is to read about the author's life and then hunt for parallels in the story.  While that information can be useful, not all stories are autobiographical.  Again, sticking to the text itself is what's important.  In the world of literary criticism it doesn't cut it to say, "well, this is what the text means to me" unless that statement can be supported.  Of course, that kind of thing is great for a casual book club where the goals are friendship and fellowship.   I interpreted Star Wars from my perspective as a Catholic woman.  I could have taken another approach and come up with a different, no less valid conclusion by sticking to the script.

OK enough about that--back to life at Casa Doyle

Speaking of the the arts and humanities, we did something yesterday that we've never done before--we saw a production at The Miller Outdoor Theatre downtown.  It was a bilingual opera for children called How Nanita Learned to Make Flan.  All of the productions at the Miller Theatre are free to the public and I was very surprised to see how sparse the audience was especially given the quality of what we saw.  All of the girls, even Ella, sat through the whole thing.  The set was very basic and the cast was small.  One pianist took care of the music.  Watching with the kids, I was able to point things out to them that they probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise.  My favorite part was when one of the actors played a clock and showed the time as Nanita described what she did at different hours of day.  With his long thin arms, he really looked the part.

After the opera, it was raining so we ate our lunch inside the pavilion with two other families.  After that, we headed to the Museum of Fine Arts, free on Thursday, for an angel hunt.  We decided to pair the kids up--a couple counted paintings with Mary in them, others Jesus and the littlest counted the angels.  We only stayed a little over an hour but it was so much fun and it gave me ideas for activities to do next time.  It's amazing how much you can teach kids just by looking at paintings.  One of the things we talked about is how hard it would be to understand some of the them without knowing the biblical or mythological stories behind them--something that's also true of literature.*

Six o'clock

Seven o'clock

Mia's message made with the alphabet cookies I brought for lunch

*One of the classes I took in grad school was a seminar on Latin American theatre.  There were about ten of us in the class and we each had to write a 15 page paper on one of the plays we studied during the semester.  We work shopped one of the papers as a class each time we met and the author had to defend his or her thesis.  My paper was about parallels to Jesus' passion and death in my assigned play.  It was one of my better papers.  I'll never forget the reaction of one of my colleagues.  Her comment was "well, I can't say much about this.  I've never read the Bible" and she tossed the paper aside.  So, as you probably know, Spain and her former colonies are all heavily influenced by religion and Catholic culture.  I wanted to say--"And you're a phDstudent?  Get ye to the library!"  But I didn't and the professor didn't either.  I got an A on the paper though so I must have convinced him that my thesis was supportable if nothing else.

Thank God...

...It's Friday!

Put on your beads and boogie!