Mama-luia

Hurray! We have made it successfully through three months of 'real' homeschooling. I want to just pause and say... I am proud of that. It is morphed into something different than perhaps I had envisioned a year ago, or even in the end of August, but in many ways it is better than those expectations of mine had been. Having Patrick so actively involved has been a tremendous blessing. Because seriously, I do not get how women look after babies and tots while still making any headway teaching an older child Math & Phonics. I know it works for some families. But that wouldn't work for ours. Not without a pharmacy of anti-anxiety drugs or a maid. What we have devised has been wonderful, however: concentrated phonics, Math and catechism lessons for an hour a day for Noah taught by Patrick, while I play with the littles and work on letters and so on with Isaiah. Then throughout the day I do art, music, readalouds, science, baking and other life skills (how to make...

~1~ I'm rather behind the eight ball on the first day of school blog post, seeing as though we've been at it for over a week, but oh my, what a week it was. On the night of Labour Day, my husband and I stayed up much later than we normally do getting our little homeschool nook in order. I wanted very much to have it look appealing to the boys because this is our first year formally homeschooling and I want to have them excited about it all. Anyway, we managed to create this little space: and I was quite pleased with it.  The boys each have their own IKEA-hack shelf with their daily read-alouds picked our for them, as well as a little calendar to learn more about the seasons and weather (mostly for Isaiah) and laminated prayer cards of the Morning Offering, the Act of Contrition and the Anima Christi. Oh, and the lunar cycle there for good measure. We love the moon a lot around here. Anyway, I went to bed that night thinking I'd sleep the sleep of ...

People ! It is my final day as twenty-something (and by -something, I mean, -nine. As in, it's my final day being twenty-nine). Clearly this needs to be documented for posterity's sake. Here are 7 Quick Takes in honour of my roarin' twenties. - 1 - I met this guy just one month short of my twentieth birthday.  Here we are when we were young and unmarried, looking way less tired. In case you were wondering, it was not love at first sight.  Not even close. He approached me at an event that was being run by CCO . He knew a surprising amount of information about me, considering we had never met, so I was put off by his eagerness. I considered it to be a hidden agenda. It was, I guess. He kinda fancied me from the get-go. But I was busy discerning a religious vocation. Ahem. Naturally, I came around (see subsequent takes). - 2 - After a winding road of studies, (I attended three different institutions, although my heart's alma ...

Jen from Conversion Diary wrote about the ideas that changed her a while back, and I have been thinking about what ideas, if any, affected me similarly ever since I read that post. I've finally compiled my list of five. ~ 1 ~ Multiple subpersonalities I always thought it was indicative of instability or immaturity if a person acted very differently depending on who's company they were in. The goal of wellness, I thought, was to be as integrated as possible. My psychiatrist a while ago told me there is a school of thought that rather sees each person as a composite of many different subpersonalities, and each subpersonality or persona needs an opportunity to come to the forefront or else the whole person experiences unrest. This has completely revitalized my way of seeing myself, particularly as a mother. In my previous idea of "integration" I believed the ideal mother to be a nurturing, ever-patient, sit-on-the-floor-and-play-endless-games-of-peekaboo type. ...

It's been almost a year since my most recent "What's New" post. Anna wasn't even born back then! I'm giving it another go because it gives me a simple and fun format to report on each member of the family. (The reason I *keep* a blog is for that purpose, so it's worth doing. I love looking back at old posts and remembering what we were like a several years ago. {Did you know I have been blogging now for 5 1/2 years?! Good grief...!}) Anna My darling baby will be eight months old this week. Time has flown and flown! She is a baby full of smiles and laughter. Today the boys were taking turns making her giggle after her afternoon nap, and I felt my hurt feel very full with joy, indeed. She has a remarkably calm temperament. I am surprised how much she will happily sit in her exersaucer, exploring her little world. In a crown Noah made with the help of a babysitter She is also a tremendously cuddly baby. Her head nestles just so on my sho...

Something terrible took place this week, a tragedy so awful, I can hardly fathom it. A friend of mine, a priest, was murdered in his rectory on Wednesday night. "Kenny" as we called him, 2005 We went to university together ten years ago and he was a great friend to me back then.  He was an exceptionally pious young man, which made him almost child-like. It was impossible not to be endeared to him, because he was so kind, so joyful and completely without pretence. He was hard-working in his studies, deeply devoted to the Mass and his prayer life, and poured so much zeal into everything he did, even moving; dear Kenny seemed to live by the motto, "why walk when you can sprint?" From our yearbook, 2004 I enjoyed our conversations immensely. Because he was such a rare mix of reverent and yet light-hearted, it was easy to open up to him about anything. I suppose that is a mark of a good priest, being warm and disarming so that souls...

Happy belated birthday to Isaiah! Our little ray of sunshine turned three in May and we had the pleasure of celebrating the day with his grandparents and godparents in Nova Scotia. First off, cereal with his beloved Gooey. Gooey takes his cereal very seriously, and is happy to shower his grandchildren with it (figuratively, of course), because they lead dull lives, being forced to eat such mundane things as oatmeal, pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast. A birthday greeting from cousins back in Ontario His godparents provided the MOUTH-WATERING cake If you can believe it, it was made without gluten, dairy, cane sugar or soy. My dad, the hater of food-restricted diets, had a second slice that night and said "you would never know" that it was made with substitutions. He has a fierce love of dress-up so the fireman suit was a big hit As was the cowboy costume... He asked to wear his chaps over his jammies. Isaiah...