Adjusting

Adjusting to having five kids (seven and under) has been a little slower than I expected.  Heh.  I feel like I say this every time I have a new baby.  Seriously, I need to write myself a note and remember to read it the next time (God willing) I'm close to giving birth.  It would say something like: 

Yes, newborns are easier than toddlers, and yes they do sleep most of the day.  But remember that their schedule is totally unpredictable.  They are going to need to nurse, or be changed, or be bounced for twenty minutes at random and unexpected times - usually the moment you were finally about to start a new task or run out the door.  Don't expect to get as much done as you're used to, and definitely don't expect to do everything in the same order or at the same time as you were hoping.  In other words, newborns force you to just be flexible and let go of the things that are less important.

We're doing fine, really, but I think starting the schoolyear almost at exactly the same time as we had a new baby made things extra challenging - because I had only had a week of trying to get into the homeschooling groove before Felix came along and totally threw us off.  And now we're trying to tackle the increased challenge of schooling the two big kids at once for the first time AND juggling a crying baby, super troublesome toddler, and whiney three-year old.  (All while failing to keep up with laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc.  Thank goodness for the meal train the members of my Catholic Mom's group have been so generously participating in!)

This past week, we didn't even have an actual official school day, because we were busy dealing with a potential medical issue with Felix, and had to spend a couple days in the hospital.  Long story short, he does this weird thing where he constantly bends his head all the way back - it seems to be his preferred posture.  He does show signs of reflux, and a similar back-arching posture is common for reflux.  But he does this all the time - even when he's calm or asleep, not just when he's having a reflux episode.  So our pediatrician was "very concerned" and wanted us to check with a neurologist, since peculiar posturing like this sometimes indicates a neurological problem.

His usual posture

The neurologist wasn't sure what was causing it, and decided to admit him to the hospital so they could figure out what was going on.  Felix had a full team of doctors working with him, and none of them had ever seen a baby do this with his head.  My poor little guy (6 weeks old) was subjected to: a head ultrasound, an EEG, an EKG, a neck x-ray, an MRI, blood draws, a bunch of wires that monitored his basic functions, and (totally unnecessary), tubes for supplemental oxygen.  

With 26 probes on his head during his EEG

And....all the tests came back normal.  Which I'm definitely thankful for.  But it's a frustrating non-conclusion to the whole ordeal.  At this point, the working theory is that perhaps it's just a weird response he has to reflux.  So we're going to try him on some stronger medication for that, and see what happens.  If the unusual head positioning continues, we may have to look into physical therapy.

*****

A few things we have managed to find the time for during this busy phase of life:

We had Felix baptized!

We've gone on a few more family nature walks, and are hoping to fit in one or two more before winter sets in.  We all really enjoy doing this together, and have discovered a couple great woods for walking.  Each of the three "big kids" has their own nature journal that they use to keep a record of our interesting finds.

Stella: proving once again that *any* creature can be snuggled

Another worm for the journal

Tom finally took the time to show the kids how to use the Mass kit I made for them to play Mass.  I've seriously dreamed about them doing this since they were born, and it just melts my heart.

Fr. Sly getting vested before Mass

The elevation.  Linus is an altar boy, and is ringing the bell

Fe.Linus baptizing Stella's baby (named "Florabelle" - I wonder where she got that from? :-P ), whom she had been begging to have baptized all morning.

Another mom whose kids are in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with Stella and Linus heard that I was a big fan of "old-fashioned" baby clothes, and gave me an amazing little collection of old baby boy clothes.  Those are like the holy grail of baby clothes for me.  I've found some adorable smocked and laced baby girl dresses at thrift stores and rummage sales in my day, but I have never ever come across a good old-fashioned baby boy outfit.  Look at some of these!!

And lastly, after almost a year of very slow-going work, I have finally finished Linus' quilt for his bed.  It turned out a lot bigger than a twin size, actually, so it will definitely grow with him.  When he was only two, and I asked him what sort of quilt he wanted, he had answered, "Blue. And Green.  And squares."  I think I pulled it off!

The pattern is called an Irish Chain

First Day of School and Some Reflections on the Kids

We started our school year yesterday!  Sly is in second grade now, and Stella's doing kindergarten.  We're calling Linus "pre-school", but I truly have no planned activities for him.  Flora, meanwhile, does her best to cause disruption and destruction while the rest of us are working on school.

We're sticking with Mater Amabilis this year.  I really do love the curriculum and the philosophy behind it, but it's a lot to fit in to our mornings.  Each subject just takes 10-20 minutes (in theory.....but I'll pay you money if you can get through a Saxon Math lesson with Sly in that amount of time!), but there are so many things to fit in, and a ton of reading aloud.  I think we'll need about two and a half hours each day to fit in everything.  It's going to get a bit more challenging to juggle it all once Stella adds in next year, so I'll have to start thinking about where I can combine the kids for various subjects.

*****

I love watching the relationship develop between Sly and Flora.  These two have always been so alike - from their looks, to their personality.  The day Flora was born, we were already predicting her to be a "female version of Sly."  They both have quick tempers and a tendency towards violence (hitting their siblings all the time).  But on the positive side, both are sociable and talkative and very smart.  They hit it off so well, and Sly takes such sweet loving care of her all the time.

But I'm predicting some challenges ahead with Flora.  She is such a troublesome toddler.  She's into everything - throwing things in the toilet and the trashcan, pulling stuff out of every cabinet and shelf.  Sly was just like that.  I had gotten used to my two "easy" middle kids.  Sly and Flora are definitely on the choleric/melancholic end of the temperament spectrum (which I am as well, but I just perceive as the more challenging "moody" types of temperaments), while Stella and Linus are more sanguine/phlegmatic (which I perceive as "pleasant and easy to get along with").

*****

Tom pointed something out the other day, about how people (ourselves included) tend to "blame" a lot of things on having a large family, but that it's not always the reality.  For example, Linus was a very late talker, and hardly said much at all until he was two.  Even now, his speech is still very poor, and he's been in speech therapy for a few months because he can't pronounce many of his starting and ending consonants in words.  It's easy to say "oh, it's because he's the third child, and didn't get as much attention."  Then there's Flora, who probably has the best vocabulary of any of our kids for her age.  And we found ourselves saying, "well, it's because she's the fourth child, and has all her big siblings to learn from."  I think for the most part, the answer is just this: every kid is different, and they're going to do things at their own pace.

*****

I'm eight days out from my due date with this next little boy (name still very much undecided)!  I'm feeling pretty good most days, but definitely mentally ready to get this show on the road.  My earliest baby has come a week early (Sly), and my latest was a week late (Linus, of course, who is showing himself to be late to everything he does).  So I'm expecting that as my range of possibilities.....but I'm definitely hoping for an early one!

How to Travel with a Large(ish) Family

We planned a stop at Sunday Mass in the middle of a long drive back home, which is why Sly's in a bow tie!

As soon as baby #4 was born, we started encountering a frustrating problem.  Most hotels would no longer allow us all to stay in one room, because it's against the fire codes to fit more than five people.  Booking two rooms for the night was too expensive and seemed like way too much of a hassle.  Not all hotels offer suites, and if they do, they're too expensive as well.

But we had a handful of out-of-town weddings to go to recently (and yes, our kids were invited!), so we started looking around for cheaper alternatives.  We decided to check out Airbnb, which we only had a vague understanding of at the time.  And let me tell you, we are never going back!

We've now stayed at four different Airbnb rentals with the whole family, and even the least nice of those was so much better than staying at a hotel (and I promise, they aren't offering me anything to promote them - this is just me, wanting to sharing some advice).  We've paid between $80-110 per night, which is definitely comparable to the cost of a hotel room.  But the amazing part is that with an Airbnb, you're getting multiple rooms.  I especially recommend looking for a place where you have the entire house or apartment to yourself, to avoid the awkwardness of having to share space with your host.  If there's a kitchen too, you can save a ton of money by not having to eat out for all your meals.

How it used to look when we stayed in hotels: We're all crowded into one room with not much to do besides watch tv, or let the kids jump incessantly from bed to bed.  When the kids' bedtime arrives, we tuck them all together into one of the queen-sized beds, turn out the lights, and pray they won't fight over the covers or mess around for too too long.

All the lights need to be off, and a quiet atmosphere maintained to encourage the kids to actually sleep.  But Tom and I don't want to just sit around silently in the dark, and we're nowhere near tired enough yet for sleeping ourselves.  So we huddle in the bathroom with the door shut.  One of us sits on the toilet lid, and one of us on the edge of the tub.  We might crack some beers, and talk in whispers, occasionally taking turns to go out and yell at the kids to stop messing around, because they aren't used to sharing a bed and the novelty of the experience is just too much for them to handle.  Once or twice, we've done the old cell-phones-as-baby-monitors trick, and sneaked down to the hotel bar for twenty minutes, but I always felt way too paranoid doing that.

Eventually, we get bored and uncomfortable, and force ourselves to go to bed much earlier than we'd like....because there's literally nothing else to do.

How it looks at an Airbnb: Just like at home!  When it's bedtime for the kids, we tuck them into beds - usually individual beds, since there are often multiple bedrooms - turn out the lights, and shut the doors.  And then Tom and I have the run of the house where we can leave all the lights blazing if we want, have normal-volume conversation, watch tv, or just do whatever we like until as late as we want!  And in the morning, we can cook our own breakfast and coffee, or eat cereal at a table with milk from the fridge.

*****

The other great discovery we made in the past year about traveling involves eating meals during long road trips.  Fast food from rest stops gets really tedious - and expensive - after a while.

Also, last summer when we replaced our old mini-van with a slightly nicer old mini-van (which had been kept pristine inside and out by the previous owner), we made a new rule for our kids: absolutely no eating in the car, EVER.  They can have water in an unspillable cup, and that's it.  No exceptions.  It was tough to adjust to in the beginning, but I don't regret it at all.  It's amazing how much cleaner - and less sticky - your car can be when there's no food eaten in it [except for the adults.  We totally still eat food and drink coffee in the front seats :-P].  But it necessitates a little more planning in terms of snacks and meals, when you're going to be in the car for long periods.

We've always been big fans of small independent diners.  Those little places down some quiet road, called So-and-so's Diner where you can get any meal on the menu for a maximum cost of about $6.  So now when we're traveling, we save up our appetites by not snacking, and we wait until mealtime to fill up.  When hunger strikes, I pull out my phone and search Google Maps for the nearest diner that looks appealing.  W follow the directions off the highway to some random country exit, and stop.  We've had mostly great luck with the little places we've found.  There's always plenty of seating, they're very kid-friendly, and so inexpensive.  Often, the entire family is able to eat a huge and satisfying meal for under $30!  It's nice to get a little break out of the car and stretch our legs and be able to talk face-to-face, instead of calling back and forth between the front seat and the back of the van.

I highly recommend you try finding one of America's little gems like this the next time you're on a long trip with your kids.

Summertime Plans

I can't even believe it, but our homeschool year is almost done!  I thought I had mapped out our last term to end mid-June, but I recently checked the schedule I put together, and we just have until the end of the month!

We followed the Mater Amabilis curriculm pretty closely this year for Sly (with just a few changes/deletions).  I think we did admirably well keeping up the pace.  The only thing we went "too slowly" with was the math.  Luckily, it's an easy subject for Sly, and the Saxon program has tons of repetition.  So for these remaining weeks, we're just going to fly through, and concentrate mainly on the new concepts.  Saxon is a strong program, and I am fully confident that it's giving him a good foundation in math.  But....it's just so dry and boring.  I'm going to be talking with other homeschooling families, and doing some research this summer to see if there's something out there that will work better for us.  And that I don't mind spending more money on.

After giving up so much "free time" this year with school, it might be a little strange to have it all back this summer.  But my mind is ever itching to plan and make schedules.  So my loose summer plans - aside from generally just hanging out and enjoying the warm weather are:

1. Lots of reading aloud.  During the school year, I was reading aloud so often for our school curriculum, that most days I didn't have the energy or desire to read other books to the kids "just for fun."  I know compared to the older kids, Linus and Flora have barely been read to specifically.  I hardly ever pull out the baby board books for Flora.  So this summer, I want to set aside a little time each morning to sit out on the porch swing and read some books to everyone just because.

A few chapter books I'd like to work through are: finishing up Winnie-the-Pooh, finishing up the My Father's Dragon stories, and reading all of St. Patrick's Summer.  The first two were both started at "tea time."  A pleasant little ritual I did increasingly less as the schoolyear wore on, and have completely given up at this point.  Perhaps that will come back next Fall!

2. Weekly daily Mass.  I wish I could say we'll plan to go everyday, but it's just not going to happen.  I'll set once a week as my goal for now.

3. Weekly trips to the library. I'll probably combine this with our trip to Mass, since both are in easy walking distance of my house.

4. Continue having Sly practice reading.  He's not coming along as well as I'd like with reading.  But - I keep reminding myself - he's only six.  No one even started teaching me to read until I was seven, and I did fine.  But, in the interest of not losing anything we gained during the schoolyear, I'm going to have him continue to work on his reading a bit every day.  We'll be using easy things like Bob Books, since he actually enjoys those.

5. Light a fire under Tom's bum, so he finishes building the bookcases in our bedroom before this baby comes!!  Once they're constructed, it will be my job to caulk, prime, paint, and stain everything.  I'd really rather get that done before I'm just too enormous to maneuver my body into all the strange positions I'll need for painting.  Then - the most exciting part - I can finally organize all our books onto the shelves!  I've already claimed one entire side for homeschool stuff.

6. Continue planning out next year's curriculum.  We're definitely going to keep on with Mater Amabilis as our base for next year.  The big things will be deciding what to do about a math program (should I switch or not?  I already have all the stuff I'd need for Saxon grade 2), deciding how much - if anything - I will do with Stella next year, and writing out a daily schedule to ensure I can fit everything in.

7. Finish knitting a baby boy blanket. I'm approaching half-way already, so I don't think this will be a problem.

8. Get back in the groove with meal-planning.  I was good about this for a couple years, but I stopped doing it when Linus was born three years ago (my transition to having three kids really threw me off for a while).  I've been getting by all this time by keeping a well-stocked pantry and chest-freezer at all times, and assembling most of our meals from what we already have in the house.  But it's really starting to catch up with me now.  I think I could relieve a fair amount of daily stress if I just had a clear plan about what we're going to eat before the day begins, and the knowledge that every ingredient I will need is definitely in the house.

April in Photos

Flora is one year old, and finally starting to pull up to standing.  The other kids are engrossed in the Elmo's Potty Time video their Grammy sent, the latest in a string of unsuccessful ploys to convince Linus to potty train...

Flora in my favorite old-fashioned type of little girl dress

my sweet girls :-)

Just an unecessary photo of my kitchen, because I'm so happy with how bright and cheery it is

Stella's art is just too cute for words

The kids have been bringing me and our Mary statues bunches of spring flowers every day

We identified these ones growing in our yard as periwinkles, and grape hyacinths

Sly had to spend an afternoon in the hospital, after whacking his face on a chair and cutting open his eyelid.  His vision is fine, but he needed four stitches - which required him to be fully sedated.

After years of working on Tom to allow us to get a pet for the kids, he agreed to let the kids pool their money for a pair of hmasters + cage that someone was selling for a really good price on Craigslist.  They are over the moon, and just loving their new pets.  Here, Sly is holding "Mr. Woodchip" (the kids picked the names)

Linus holding "Mr. Fluff"

Flora pulling up once again.  At the midwife's office....where we have been going for prenatal appointments.  We are expecting another baby in September! :-D

December Photo Dump

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

I took a photo  of Stella with a fluffy little toy alpaca she found in her shoe this morning, and realized that I have a bunch of photos in my phone that I needed to transfer over to the computer.  Here are just a few, to give a glimpse of what we've been up to recently.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we had dinner with three other families we are friends with, all of whom live in Maryland.  Two of us are homeschooling the kids, and two of us send the kids to a Catholic classical school.  Needless to say, our children have all been made to memorize poetry.  So it was the most heartwarming and encouraging moment for me when, after we had finished eating, the children voluntarily took turns going up to recite poems for the whole group!  At one point, there was even a little scuffle as several of them began shoving each other, wanting to have the stage.  With the exception of that little episode, though, the whole experience so completely fit my ideal of the type of education I'm trying to give my kids.  A wonderful time.

Sweet sleeping baby shot.

While driving from Maryland to the Philly area to stay with the in-laws, we stopped at a tiny middle-of-nowhere diner that was a total throwback to the 50s.  They still had a functioning jukebox that played 45rpm records for a nickel a song!  The kids were fascinated by it, and loved watching the automatic arm put down the record and start to play.

My brother-in-law and my husband dressed super fashionably (they were in vacation mode, I guess) a couple days before Thanksgiving.  And yes, they did go out in public like this!

My quilting group meets on Monday nights, which is trash night around here.  Several times on my way home, I have pulled over to save some treasure from someone's trash.  One of my recent finds was this cute little children's rocking chair.  The wood wasn't in the best shape, so I didn't want to spend time refinishing it with stain.  Here it is primed and ready for painting.  Stay tuned for a future post to see what color it became!

The big kids put some reindeer antlers on Flora.  She is not crawling yet, but seems so so close.

Babies with anything on their heads are just the cutest.  Maybe I'll have her wear these when we visit "Santa" this year.

Someone posted this on Facebook, and I liked it.  I feel like I should have this posted up somewhere in the house, as a reminder to myself.

I'm very slowly starting the decorating process around here, trying to keep the spirit of Advent, and not go "full Christmas" too soon.  I pulled out some of my special paper snowflakes I made in college, and hung them up around the bottom floor.  The kids thought they were so neat, and wanted to make some of their own. It turns out that Sly is currently the only one with enough hand strength and control to cut through all the layers of paper....which means the younger two were alternately crying in frustration/whining at me for help, and....it just wasn't that fun for anyone.  Maybe in a few years we will try again!

Linus fell asleep for a late afternoon nap, and our cat was willing to go the closest she's ever gone to him!

Nature Walks with Young'uns

As part of our Charlotte Mason homeschooling approach this year, I've scheduled in some regular nature walks with the kids.  It's just every-other-Friday right now, alternating with our homeschool co-op's meetings.

So far - with the exception of one ill-fated trip through some uncharted and very hilly woods the day after a huge rainstorm wherein all my kids became truly convinced that we were utterly and irrevokably lost and all four of them began bawling in terror - it's been quite lovely.

After the aforementioned incident, I've learned to keep it small, and keep it simple.  So far, I've picked little patches of forest that I'm already familiar with near our home.  I live in Pennsylvania, afterall, so *all* the nature is forest.  And it's quite hilly around here, which means most of these forests also have a creek running through the bottom, which is awesome for exploration.

Each of the kids carries a backpack containing a nature journal, a pencil, a water bottle, and one piece of fruit to snack on.  I usually sneak a few tree or bird identification guides into the big kids' backpacks as well.  I wear the baby in the Ergo, outfit myself in what my husband calls my "combat boots," and off we go.

We just take a leisurely stroll down the paths we find, and I encourage the kids to notice certain little things I might see or hear.  But for the most part, they are much more observant than me.  It must come from being so close to the ground!  On even the most seemingly ordinary stretch of path, the kids can find plenty of things to keep them interested - spiky seed pods from a sweetgum tree, a decaying log, some ever-pervasive shelf fungus...

It takes a little while for me to get in the "mood" of the nature walk, so to speak.  But after twenty minutes or so in the woods, I feel myself starting to calm down.  To breathe more easily, and loosen upand just let go of my tensions.  It's truly rejuvenating for my soul, and I find myself longing suddenly to move out of the city and live a simple quiet life surrounded by the outdoors.

I've found it best to keep the length of the walk pretty quick.  Maybe forty-five minutes total.  That's short enough that the kids aren't too tired, and their curiosity hasn't been burned up.  At some point aferwards - though not always the same day, as I'd prefer - I have the kids draw a picture of something we saw in their nature journals, and then they dictate a little description that I write for them.

For all my talk of wanting my kids to approach science firstly through a love of nature and by using personal observations of the world, I know never would have built in the time for this in our schedule had I not been trying to give Charlotte Mason's education approach a fair trial.  It seems like such a simple thing - a short walk in the woods every now and then.  But I've been so amazed at the things the kids have noticed and learned, and the spark it has ignited in their minds.

Reconsidering Liturgical Celebrations

A blessed Advent to all!  This is one of my favorite times of year, and I'm so glad it has come around again.

We just got back to town after a long Thanksgiving trip, so I haven't yet dug out the Advent wreath or Jesse Tree, or all the other great little treasures packed away in my Advent box.

But I did pull out my huge stack of children's picture books for the season.  I know some families like to wrap all their Christmas books in wrapping paper, and have the kids pick one to read each day of Advent.  Sounds like a nice way to space them out and build up anticipation and all that, but...."Aint's nobody got time for that" (as they say) around here.  Instead, they'll just sit in a stack in the basement and the kids will be able to choose what to read each day.  I counted up our books, and we have over forty!  Yikes.  Too many books for just one per day, so I'll be letting each kid take a turn to pick two books to read each day until we run out.

I've been doing some thinking about how our family should observe the Church's feast days.  It seems like a lot of the Catholic moms on the internet these days observe so many of the days in the Liturgical calendar with a special craft or fun treat for the kids.  You can find online for observing  ideas for even the most obscure of holydays.  For awhile, I felt like I needed to do that too.

I think it's great that there is a renewed interest in the observation of the Church year.  Based on the publication dates of some of the "classic" books on this topic (Maria Von Trapp's. Mary Reed Newland's, Fr. F. X. Weiser's), I suspect there was a similar cultural movement like this back in the 50s.

But after trying - and failing - many times to come up with and remember to do fun activities with the kids for each major feast day that came up, I realized it wasn't exactly what I wanted for our family.  Something about it all seemed forced, artificial.

This year's chocolate chip Rosaries on the feast of O.L. of the Rosary.  We don't let them eat the chips while we actually pray the Rosary, because that seems irreverent.  Tom keeps asking what's the point of having them do this.  I guess...because it's fun? [buzz cuts on the boys are thanks to the *lice* infestation we battled earlier this Fall]

The truth is, I was not personally handed on any family or cultural traditions for celebrating most of the the days in the Church calendar (the only exceptions are Christmas and Easter).  I'm not opposed to us forming our own family traditions or trying to recreate older ones which have largely fallen out of use for certain holydays.  But I think this needs to happen both gradually and somewhat organically.  I think we should concentrate on observing the feasts that are most important for the Church, then adding in a few that are important and for our family in particular.

And anyways, the best and most traditional way to celebrate the feasts is to attend Mass on that day, and pray the special prayers that the Church has chosen (as well as participating in the prayers of the Divine Office).

Conclusion: attending Mass with your family to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is better than eating tacos on that day just because she appeared in Mexico.  Or, baking a cake for the feast of St. Linus (a rather obscure Saint) because you have a son named for him is better than saying, "oh, tomorrow is the feast of St. Benedict!" (who you admittedly don't much much about, and have never had a personal devotion to) and scrambling to find  an excerpt about him to read the kids from one of their Saint books, and researching the various traditional ways different countries/monasteries have celebrated the day, and trying to throw a special dish together at the last minute with food items you already have in your pantry.  You know what I mean?  (though let me be clear - eating tacos as a way to observe a feast is not bad)

At Mass yesterday, the first day of Advent, the priest said some things in his homily that struck me.  Firstly, he was talking about our daily family prayers, and how we needed to ramp them up during Advent.  He mentioned a daily Rosary, referring to it as "the basics", that it was what we should all already be doing.  How many Catholic families are making the time and effort to fit in a Rosary every single day?  Are you?  How can you make it happen this Advent?

Father suggested, if families aren't already, to add in the prayer of the Angelus each day this Advent - saying it once morning morning, noon, and 6pm, if you're able.

Father also talked about the penitential nature of Advent, and how we should consider a way to make it more penitential in our homes. It got me to thinking about how rarely I offer any personal penances, or observe any fasts.  With the exception of the bare minimum required by the Church - fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstaining from meat every Friday - I don't have a good habit of offering sacrifices.  (if you are Catholic, and are not consistently abstaining every Friday of the year, please be aware that this is required.  If you live in the US, you have permission to substitue a personal penance instead of abstaining from meat. We prefer to follow the traditional course.  I have heard it argued that there is greater virtue in performing a penance not chosen by yourself, one that is accepted from above out of obedience)

All this started me thinking of the Liturgical year again, and how there used to be so many more days on which fasting/abstinence were required - more stringent fasting rules for Lent, the Ember days, fasting on the eve of many major feast days, and so on.  We are not required to observe many of these fasts anymore, just as we are not required to observe most of the feast days on the calendar.  But if I want to try to revive the celebration of some of our favorite feasts in our home - Assumption, Our Lady of the Rosary, Epiphany, etc. - then I feel we should really be taking on more of the penitential days as well.

It just suddenly feels wrong to enjoy celebrating all the feasts without also sacrificing during the fasts.

Mothering Days

A few days ago, the kids and I really needed to get out of the house, so I took them to the local Game Preserve.  There's a pond with ducks and geese, a couple caged peacocks, and a bunch of buffalo in a fenced pasture.  I'ts not as exciting as the zoo, but it's free, and it's a nice way to kill a little time on a summer day.

We had brought a bag of stale bread to feed the ducks, as one does.  As soon as we stepped out of the van, the Canada geese spotted us with our bag of bread, and they came swarming.  First four, then eight, then sixteen....they were just multiplying every second, waddling over and surrounding us.  I doled out a piece of bread to each kid.  But the geese got greedy, and when Stella and Linus weren't able to break off pieces quickly enough (or hold their bread up high enough), they both started to get bitten!  Geese are mean creatures.

Poor Linus started crying, and clinging to me for dear life!  Then Stella followed suit It was such a chaotic scene, I couldn't help laughing.  And then we tried to get away, and all the geese were chasing behind, while Linus cried and cried.  I know it makes me a terrible mother, but it was definitely the funniest thing I've seen all month :-)

*****

Speaking of being a mean mom, I've started to make my kids clean their rooms completely every day after "nap time"!  (I always put nap time in quotation marks, because no one ever actually sleeps.  And I don't even have the energy to enforce a true "quiet time" since they are on the third floor and I'm just not going to drag myself up there every five minutes to make them be quiet.)

Ever since the never-ending renovations started on Stella's room over a year ago, we've had the three biggest kids all sleeping up on the third floor together.  I send them up there for a couple hours every afternoon, because....well, I need it for my sanity!  Needless to say, the rooms become a huge wreck every day.  I was wearing myself out trying to tidy every few days, and keep the third floor rooms somewhat presentable.  But I've decided that if the kids can make the mess, then they're ready to learn how to clean it up as well!

Ten minutes before the end of naptime, I tell them it's time to start cleaning.  They let me know when they're ready for a room inspection, and then I go up to take a look.  I'm pretty ruthless - I think it's the best way to be, so they learn to do a good job.  They can't have even a little scrap of paper left on the floor, or a single sock under the bed.  When they're a little bigger and more capable, I'll start having them make the beds as well.  The first week of room cleaning was slow going.  They didn't know the most efficient ways to tidy up, and kept calling me up to check when there were still a bunch of little things scattered around.  But they're getting quicker and better now.  It's become expected, so there's no complaining about it.  They just get it done.

*****

Yes, I feel like I'm slowly figuring out some tricks in this parenting business...For example, today at Aldi, I decided to try taking two shopping carts instead of one. I pushed the cart with Linus and Flora.  Those two usually ride together in the cart, so I'm forced to pack all my groceries around Flora's bulky car seat.  But today, my big almost-six-year-old Sly pushed the other cart containing Stella and all the groceries. It worked out so well. Three of the kids were strapped in, and the other one was busy with an important job. So there was none of the usual monkey-ing around or reminders from me to stay with the cart, stop hiding behind boxes, etc. It was all business - and so much more efficient than usual!

My Favorite Children's Musicians

I truly enjoy listening to children's music.  Probably more than my kids do.  Pretty much all of the kids' music I consider "good" is actually folk music, which might explain why I love it so much.

That said, I almost universally dislike when children themselves are singing the songs.  The little voices just tend to sound so whiny!  I prefer an adult singer with some simple but well-performed accompaniment.

Here is a list of my top recommendations for children's artists:

1. Nancy Cassidy
This is the woman I grew up listening to!  I have mega nostalgia when it comes to her albums, and still know every song by heart.  They were originally released by Klutz.  Each album historically came with a lyric book so kids can follow along (we had the cassette tapes growing up).  I'm not sure if the newest version of the cds comes with these, but I'd bet you can find them on eBay.  She has a great voice, and it's easy to sing along.


KidsSongs
KidsSongs Jubilee (my favorite)
KidsSongs 2


2. Raffi
I never heard of Raffi as a child.  How is that even possible?  I feel like everyone else my age grew up with his music.  Now I know I was really missing out!  We now have a ton of his albums, and I love them all.  He's quite a prolific artist!  Here are all the ones I can definitely recommend:



Singable Songs for the Very Young
Baby Beluga
Rise and Shine
One Light, One Sun
Everything Grows
Bananaphone (one of the kids' favorites)
More Singable Songs
The Corner Grocery Store
Raffi's Christmas Album
Raffi Radio (Tom and I have been known to put on the song 'Coconut' even after the kids are in bed just because it's so enjoyable)
Let's Play

As I was compiling this list, I discovered that he has two new albums I've never even listened to!  It genuinely feels like I discovered a goldmine, and I just declared to Tom that Sly and Stella will each be receiving a Raffi album for their birthdays next month :-)

3. Elizabeth Mitchell
She's a newer artist than the others I've mentioned. I first heard her lovely voice at a friends' house, when she put on an album for her children.  Elizabeth sings a lot of modern renditions of traditional folk songs.  Her stuff is probably the easiest to find at your local library.



You Are My Sunshine
You Are My Little Bird
Little Seed (my all-time favorite - all the songs are covers of Woody Guthrie songs)
Sunny Day

4. Peggy and Mike Seeger
A sister and brother duo (their half-brother is Pete Seeger).  I only have one of their albums (so far!), but I've been loving it.  On this, they are singing the entire collection of folk songs their mother Ruth published in one of her several song books (see it here).



American Folk Songs for Children

I recently found another of Ruth Seeger's books at a library book sale, and it's a sweet collection of songs.  I've seen that the siblings recorded an album of these as well, and I'm looking forward to hearing it sometime.

5. Making Music Praying Twice
I really like the idea of this program, intended to teach music and rhythm (and a bit of the Faith) to young children.  The song selections are pretty good, though I'll say that the singers' voices/singing style is sometimes not my favorite.  But it's a great intro to some simple, fun songs for kids.  I've heard my children singing songs off these albums more than any of the other ones, even though I've played them less times.

Making Music Praying Twice Family Edition

***

Who are your family's favorite children's artists?  I'd love to give them a listen!

(note: this post contains affiliate links)