Mama-luia

Dear friends, it's unreasonably hot here for September! I got a sunburn yesterday wandering around town with my double stroller. Meanwhile, on my meal plan for last night's dinner, I was require dto make Cream of Cauliflower soup, because it's cheap/fast/the kids actually like it but it gives them oodles of veggies. But... Who wants soup when it's 31 degrees celsius?! (My kids, it turns out. They gulped down it like it was their last meal.) Of course, I am utterly grateful to not being lighting the wood stove yet. And I will gleefully don my swimsuit for one more dip in the lake this weekend. To be clear, I am more gleeful about the swimming aspect than actually donning of the swimsuit. Perhaps you already knew that. Soon enough, though, the colder weather will draw me back inside... by the fire... with more books! And I had better plow through them because Lawdy, I still have a substantial amount to complete to go to meet my goal of 52 books by December 31s...

After almost three weeks of school, I'm finally getting around to talking about our back to school time for the 2017-2018 year. (Also, I nearly gasped typing the numbers "2018" for the first time; that year represents us being married for A DECADE!) This was a big year in our house, because THREE of our children are now in school. Yes, Noah is in Grade 3, which sounds so decidedly grown up, I could faint, Isaiah is in Grade 1, and teeny little Anna began Junior Kindergarten. The first day was not without Big Emotions, but not from the youngest who was being dropped off for the first time ever at school. Oh no. It was from our oldest. He had been away for the Labour Day long weekend on pilgrimage with Patrick, a 100km pilgrimage to be exact, and hadn't gotten home until 11pm the night before. I knew the night before that he would be exhausted the next morning and that would be a tricky start to third grade, and I was not wrong. What I hadn't considered, tho...

I'm so behind on my book review posts, so I'm just going to do a handful I've read at a time. This means you'll be seeing a few extra posts from me, rather than cramming them all into one mega-essay. I'm personally not a fan of ultra-long blog posts, so I'm sparing you the pain. Before I begin, I decided mid-January that my one resolution for 2017 was to read 52 books. To some, that may be a small number. It seems like a whole lotta Mommy bloggers whip through books at a breakneck pace. I, however, am a relatively slow reader. At least when it comes to fiction, I tried to read at the pace in which I would read it aloud. So skimming, et cetera, is a no-go. Also, I'm not part of the goal to read any ol' garbage just to fill out my checklist. My reading choices aren't exactly Aristotle, unlike my spouse (... truly...) but I don't want drugstore paperbacks to fill up the time I would have been previously using Facebook. Wouldn't that be ...

The other day, I was out buying the last of the school items with the kids -- new pencil cases. (But... don't the older two still have theirs from last year? Why yes..., somewhere . Ahem.) The cashier looked at me with gaggle of kiddos and said, "Well, you must be excited for their first day of school!" Because none of them would ever take in from that statement that I resent their presence, that we expect mothers to find being in their kids' company a chore. Oh no, they're all too obtuse to clue into subtexts. {Note: dripping irony. They're pretty intelligent children, and we have even had discussions on people's weird comments about them afterwards. Mostly it's been my attempt to thwart the damage stranger's rude observations may make.} Here's the thing: normally I probably would have wanted to say "yes!" I certainly was a bit burn out by summer last year. Me alone with four kids, including a very new newborn... ?! ...

Imagine the joy of sharing your favourite novel with your children, something you looked forward to doing with them before they were even born. Imagine that they loved that novel themselves, and request to listen to the audio version time and time again at bed time. Imagine telling your children that they would get to see Green Gables in real life this summer, and their starry-eyed wondering and planning began immediately, months before the trip would take place. Imagine the immense delight of watching your oldest child, whom you sometimes worry is growing up too fast, skipping along the path towards Green Gables, singing over and over, "I am so excited! I am so excited!" Imagine watching your sons take in the view of the harbour in Charlottetown, and you somehow see them  simultaneously as toddlers, in their current ages, and as teenagers and beyond.  They are wonderfully young and yet mysteriously maturing, and each stage is so satisfying in it...

We have only a few precious days left of our summer vacation. And what a time it has been! Despite my previous whining about how loud it has been, this may have amounted to our best summer yet. One of the highlights was spending a renewing week at Nazareth Family camp in beautiful Quebec . Although I have previously stated I am not a big fan of "date nights," the principle behind dating one's spouse is perfectly true: one needs to nurture one's marriage for the health of the whole family. Nazareth camp does that for us. While the children are babysat for a few hours in the morning, the couples all gather and have discussions about important subjects relating to marriage and family life. It's very energizing for me and Patrick; I see the fruits of this concentrated attention on our marriage almost immediately. We learn from the example of the other families who are there, and we're so inspired by their witness of faith lived out in a practical, down-to...

As I type, my father is outside mowing our lawn. After spending an hour this morning fixing the railing on our porch. And accompanying me and my tribe of small people to the Farmer's Market, just because. He lives in a different province but he still flew up here to spend just shy of a week with our family. As I continue my current feud with anxiety, he thought it would be helpful for me to have an extra set of hands with the kids during the very full summer days. It is so incredibly humbling being loved this way. Throwback photo to one year ago; grandparents + little kids + "Paw Patrol" Sometimes I wish I was more "capable" than I am; I feel embarrassed that the concrete help from my parents is something I want so dearly, and do so much better with. If only I was stronger, I think, I could manage family life without inconveniencing my mom and dad to the degree that I do. But the truth is, they enjoy being a part of their lives. They are pr...