Dawn's having a field day

At By Sun and Candlelight, Dawn's taking us on a tour of nature. If you can't get out in the real world today, take a virtual stroll with Dawn and her many contributors. What a terrific carnival!

Meanwhile, around here last night, Ramona got a lesson on the nature of things as she and Betsy played Bunnies and Kitties:

"Watch out, Kitty! Bunnies like to eat kitties, you know!"

Betsy roared. "No, sweetie ... kitties like to eat bunnies."

"Oh," said Ramona, looking slightly sheepish. "Well, then I'd better run!"

The Edge of the Forest

If you haven't checked out this online newsletter, you've been missing a treat. It's put together by these people, features reviews like this, and directs you to some great kid lit blogs.

Creep up to the Edge of the Forest and peer in. You'll be glad you did.

Ummm, yeah.

Or, in my case: "Don't I need to check email again? And reading just a few more blogs won't hurt anything ...."

This comic will explain.

Prayers for a baby on the way

Please pray for a wonderful young couple, J. and E., as they await the arrival of their first child. If E. did not go into labor today, there will be an induction tomorrow.

We help sponsor this couple, (they are FOCUS missionaries) and can honestly say that they are two of the most upbeat, inspiring young Catholics we've ever met. They were married last July. I knew that, open to life as they are, they'd be expecting quickly, and now the day has arrived. Please keep them in your prayers tomorrow as they look forward to meeting their new baby.

And, if you are inspired to sponsor a missionary, contact FOCUS or, email me for more info. J. and E. could use a few more sponsors, as they are one of the first "missionary couples" and obviously will have more expenses than the typical single missionary. This is one donation that we have never questioned. We've been privy to the spiritual fruits, and really believe FOCUS is a terrific organization.

She's a child of technology

I was reading On Tidemill Lane to Anne and Betsy tonight, and trying to alternate between a Scottish accent and a German one, as Martha and her friend, Mrs. Edsel, conversed. My German slipped into my Scottish, and I laughed and said, "Oops ... Mrs. Edsel is suddenly from Scotland, I think."

Ramona, skipping through the room with a baby doll tied to her, sling-style, with a blanket, looked back over her shoulder and called out, "It's computer-generated Scottish."

Carnival of Education

The Carnival of Education is in full swing at The Lilting House.

Lissa has posted tons of links, and lots of great quotes on education. As Ramona says, "Okay, okay! Watch and learn, people!" (Or, in this case, read and learn, but you get the drift.)

Where, O death, is your victory?

I mentioned the other day that I would post more about the funeral we attended when I could gather the thoughts and tame the emotions.

I'll preface those thoughts with this one: when I first joined the ranks of Christianity, I naively thought that all my problems with death were over. I sometimes looked at other people as an alien species when they spoke with sadness of someone dying. "But that person has gone to heaven," I thought. "Shouldn't we be cheering that he's made it to the place we all want to be? Do we really believe this stuff or not?"

Of course, I was young and stupid (not as young as I sound there, though entirely as stupid -- I'm embarrassed to admit that I was 29) and I hadn't experienced much death at all. I still had my parents, all four of my grandparents, and death was still something that happened mostly to other people. I grew up, for the most part, without funerals. Then in college, my boyfriend's brother died in a terrible car accident. The whole thing seemed selfishly surreal to me: I'd been on the brink of breaking up with him, but when his brother died, of course I couldn't bring myself to do it. Dave's was the first "real" funeral that I remember, and ironically, it was in the same town to which I would later move, and in the same parish where I was eventually received into the Catholic Church.

My first truly close encounter with death was in the same sacred space in which I later embraced True Life Himself.

What I remember most about my boyfriend's brother's funeral is crying my eyes out at the waste of such a young life (two young lives -- it was a double funeral, though I'd never met the other boy who died at the hands of that drunk driver) and feeling dazed through the luncheon afterward. I didn't understand how we were supposed to eat, laugh and talk as if it were a party and everything was okay. I didn't know "how to act." And I really didn't understand all that food.


Since then, I've said good-bye to all four of my beloved grandparents. Atticus and I have seen old college friends lose their six-year-old daughter to a heartbreaking blood disease. Another old friend from college was in a car accident in which his ten-year-old daughter was critically injured and her best friend died. Last month, an old friend from church lost his adult son very suddenly due to an undiagnosed medical condition. Of course there have been other encounters as various acquaintances and relatives have passed away. We've lost several babies through miscarriage. Three months ago, we lost my husband's mother. She is the first of my children's grandparents to pass away.

Last week, when my friend (Jack) lost his father to cancer, yet another part of my history died. I still smile when I remember how Jack, Sr. used to call me "that little girl" (as in, when a girl showed up at the house to hang out with Jack his junior year of high school, his dad would page him with, "Jaaaaack! That little girl is here to see you.")

So. Death is no longer a mysterious stranger to that little girl. I've seen and felt plenty of it, thank you very much. And my children have been introduced to it at a much younger age than I was. And the things I've learned are these:

+ While death may not be a mystery to a Christian, we are weak creatures who deal with it haltingly. No matter how glorious is the new dwelling place of our friends and family, we miss them. And it hurts. And we cry. Jesus wept, too, so we're in pretty good company.

+ No matter how young children are, they are deeply affected by loss. At confession the other day, Anne's penance (assigned by our brand-new-assistant priest who had no way of knowing she could still be raw) was "to pray for all those who are recently departed." She came out of the confessional, knelt in a pew and started sobbing about her grandmother. And she and Betsy were so upset by the idea of "another funeral" that I left them with a friend when we attended Jack, Sr.'s last week.

Children feel things. They feel them deeply. And their feelings about grandmothers and funerals will get all tied up in their feelings about losing two hamsters in one year, and having lots of brothers and sisters in heaven and it will be hard to sort out exactly what's making them cry, but one thing is certain: they just need to be held. Just like we do sometimes.


+ And all that food (as everyone else already knew) = love

Death will not, does not, have the final word. In spite of our sobs and our loneliness, our trials, fears and pains, death's sting will not, in the end, win.

Because Christ has conquered death, we can say:

I will rejoice with joy in the Lord,
and my spirit shall be joyful in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation
and wrapped me round with the mantle of justice,
like a bridegroom decked with a crown,
like a bride adorned with her jewels

~~ Isaiah 61:10

Pro-life atheists

I love 'em.

I'd like to be able to say that when I was an atheist I had the intellectual integrity to be pro-life, but I didn't. Nope. I was driven to Christ by a number of things, but I didn't get my pro-life priorities into place until my faith forced me to do so. Atticus, on the other hand -- now there's intellectual integrity. He saw, long before he would seriously examine the Catholic Church, that the pro-choice wool had been pulled over his eyes. His pro-life conversion came before Jesus swept in to do the final clean-up.

As I'm up too late tonight, reading Mark Shea and Jimmy Akin, I'm struck by their posts on a couple of pro-life atheists. I've admired Nat Hentoff for a long time, and today Jimmy Akin had a link to a Hentoff editorial in which Hentoff describes the scene at a friend's dinner table. A nine-year-old boy, upon learning what an abortion is, tells his (abortionist) mother that the procedure, no matter when it's done, means, "killing the babies." Well, yeah. It does. He sees it. Will his mother? I hope and pray that she will be wrestling with her son's words. It will be painful ... like ripping into a part of herself, wrenching that part inside out, and scouring it clean with the roughest of tools. Truth has a way of leaving one raw. Let's pray she's willing to pay that price, and that her son has set her on a salvific path.

The other link, at Catholic and Enjoying It, was about the Raving Atheist. Let's pray for him, too.

Planet Frog Revisited

Back in April, we received our tadpoles from Uncle Milton. The girls named them Ty and Trevor; Trevor promptly died.

Ty is apparently a classic case of arrested development. He's still a happy tadpole. He's gotten a little pudgier, and we keep thinking we see the buds of little legs (wishful thinking?) but nothing has happened. Atticus thinks these things just don't do well in captivity.

Anyone else with tadpole experience? Are we doing something wrong? According to Uncle Milton, we should have had a frog within a month. Ty is either stubborn or stunted. Anyone? Anyone?

An evening conversation with Ramona

"Mommy, do you believe in the Easter Bunny?"

"Sure. Do you?"

"No. I don't. I do not believe that the Bunny goes out and buys all that stuff and then leaves it for us. He goes to Bunny World and buys that stuff? That's just creepy!"

Shocked, dismayed, and a little creeped out myself, I thought, "You're not even four years old yet! From whence comes this cynicism?" Then Ramona continued:

"Here's what I think: I think that Santa delivers the stuff to the Easter Bunny and then the Bunny drops it off here."

Whew. I can stop worrying about who or what is creepy. She really is only three.

Another Solemnity

Today is the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. Read more at Women for Faith and Family and at Catholic Culture.

Decluttering my brain

I'm rereading a book I first read very early in our homeschool journey.

In School-proof, Mary Pride reminds me of the things I love about homeschooling, and of what is possible: the simplicity, the directness of the teaching, the wonderful eschewing of all-things-clutter.

One of the reasons I love homeschooling is that the kids and I get to make decisions about what we do, what we study, what we read and when we read it. My standing joke in our first year at home (after having my eldest attend Kindergarten) was that I would never again be caught off-guard by a last-minute note requesting three large soda bottles for a "fun and educational craft project." Such notes inevitably left me whining, "But we don't even buy those big bottles!"

In a chapter entitled, "Educational Clutter's Last Stand," Mary reminds us that an awful lot of what passes for curriculum is just busy work. As homeschoolers, we can easily identify busy work when a child is in school. But sometimes we lose sight of it when we become the teachers. All those delicious curriculum catalogs, those exciting ideas, the fun-and-educational projects ... they're so tempting, aren't they? And before we know it, we're the bad-guy, sending ourselves a last-minute mental note to scrounge up three large soda bottles. Yikes.

I like rereading Mary's book because she keeps me grounded in a simple truth. She says,

The secret is out -- the better teacher you get to be, the less you will need expensive curriculum and supplies. A beginning teacher can teach all her children to read with a prepackaged curriculum and have them reading years ahead in six months or less. A good teacher can teach phonics with a few simple readers, flash cards and a chalkboard. A great teacher can do it with library books and a pencil and ten sheets of paper! The difference is simply that the great teacher knows exactly where she is going and how to handle each roadblock or opportunity along the way.

My aim is to keep in mind exactly where our homeschool is going. Thus, "The Plan" I recently mentioned. Yesterday, I finished one stage of it: I gathered every science-related book in the house (and ended up with three stacks of books on the dining room table.) I sat down with my girls and talked about what they'd like to learn. I filled in a couple of gaps with suggestions of my own, and I found everything we'll need in those stacks. Books, ideas, resources, experiments .... I'll post the details later, but the point is that I don't need to buy any new science curriculum, tempting as it may be. I can craft a course of study from what we own and from library books.

It comes down to this: The main thing my children need from me can't be purchased. They just need me. My time and attention. Resources are easy to come by; commitment -- of my time and of myself -- is the key.

Tags: home education, curriculum, unschooling, education

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. One of my favorite resources, Women for Faith and Family, has (as always) a page full of links and ideas.

Of course, Mike Aquilina has something to add.

The Family Centered Life has a post on Illuminated Ink's coloring contest and reminds us that today, as it is a Solemnity, is not a penitential Friday. Have that hamburger! Have that chocolate chip cookie!

Where are you from?

I'm from being late for contests.

But, contest or no contest, I finally got around to writing the "I Am From" poem that so many have been having a good time with. I have to admit, this was a fun and touching stroll down my own memory lane.

I Am From

I am from knee socks, Hostess cupcakes
and black patent leather shoes worn home from the store.

I am from coast to coast, from everywhere and nowhere,
the child of a pilot and his bride. I am from base housing,
plain vanilla walls and Barbie clothes sewn from Thailand’s silk.

I am from holly hock dolls and walking to school,
from dandelion bouquets, from Alaskan glaciers and the sun
rising over the Atlantic on a Florida coast.

I am from summer car trips to Grandma and Grandpa's,
with stops to see Lookout Mountain and the Truman Museum
along the way.
I am from staid New England stock, from Indiana folks,
from John and Norma, Madeline and Jim.
I am from lightning bugs in the backyard
and the comforting scent of Noxzema.

I am from “Be polite” and “Do your best,”
and “Goodnight, John-boy” at bedtime,
from “I’m rubber, you’re glue,”
and from “Nuh-uh is not a word.”

I am from my squishy pillow at the drive-in,
from a six-year-old’s delight in the
dark, safe cocoon of the family car.

I am from Santa Claus and Easter eggs, dinnertime grace,
and from bedtime prayers that faded away.

I am from Germany and Wales, from homecooked meals,
decorated doll cakes on my birthday,
and home-sewn clothes
that made me proud of my mother’s skill.

From Grandma, who thought I loved peas
because I gobbled them up (just to get rid of them),
and from Grandpa, who convinced me
that a signal tower was his own private Christmas tree.
I am from my grandmother’s habit of smearing butter
on a scraped knee, and taking me to “the grocery”
no matter what store it was.

I am from Mom, who decorated the house for every holiday,
and took us blueberry hunting by the creek;
from Dad, who told me that thunder
was the giants bowling in the sky,
and whose hand holding mine is the only thing I remember seeing
when he returned from a year in Korea.

I am from Air Force brats bonding through a shared, strange life,
from a family who taught me without words that “skin color”
means nothing and “human being” means everything.

I am from nomads, from possibilities and from imagination.

I am from a longing for roots, found finally, and only, in God.

Grabbing a few minutes ...

... before I delve into some writing that I hope will pay a bill or two ....

I was AWOL yesterday ... we had a funeral to attend. More about that later, when I can gather the thoughts and tame the emotions. It was the father of my best friend.

In the meantime, on a completely different subject, check out Lissa's post at The Lilting House on fun resources, whether you homeschool or not. Wow! So many great links in one place. Start your mouse ... you're going to be doing a lot of bookmarking.

And, as soon as I have time, I want to post a few quotes from Mary Pride's Schoolproof, which I'm rereading (part of "The Plan" to avoid buying any new curriculum for the coming year.)

The Plan

Lissa's posts on curriculum at The Lilting House seem to be striking a chord with many. It's almost like a virus that's making the rounds: homeschooling moms are assessing their curriculum overload and deciding that they've had enough. And they're not going to take it anymore.

But, the posts strike a chord here, too -- I laughed out loud at Lissa's description of herself because it's me, through and through.

I'm an eclectic, unschoolish, flexible homeschooler, but I love to browse curriculum catalogs, buy new things, invest in new books and try out new ideas. And, I often end up abandoning the stuff I've bought in favor of fashioning our own curriculum or delving into treasures we've found at the library (or buried in our home library.)

That's really not such a bad thing. I think we homeschooling moms fall into this trap because we're so intrigued by learning. It's one of the reasons we homeschool in the first place: we love to learn, love to talk about learning, love to try out and tweak various methods of learning. A new curriculum is sometimes just part of the love affair.

Back in May, a friend of mine was talking about getting her book order placed (she is amazingly organized and so beautifully steers her seven children through homeschooling that it humbles me to no end.) I joked that I had enough curriculum in this house to plan out the next two or three years, but right after I said that, my summertime planning swam into focus.

So I started the plan. I haven't gotten very far, but let's not talk about that. The plan is to sort through all the books we have, decide what we can actually use in the coming year, sell or give away others, and to buy as little as possible this year.

This plan has a name: Be Realistic. The execution of the plan goes something like this: acknowledge that I love to investigate possibilities and ideas, but realize that I don't have to follow up the catalog-browsing with an actual purchase. It's okay (if completely nerdy) to think of browsing curriculum catalogs as a hobby.

"Hi, I'm Karen ... and I'm a Curricula-holic."

But I can beat this thing.

Tags: home education, curriculum

Always great stuff

at Big A little a. Kelly points us to the Washington Post's Summer Book Club.

And, to what is certain to be my children's delight, a great website: Inkless Tales.

Thanks, Kelly!

Ramona in the morning

Ramona's breakfast this morning must have felt more like a snack than breakfast (the dry Apple Cinnamon Cheerios were in a cup, and she got to watch a video as she munched.)

Uncertain as to whether this was a meal or a snack, she decided to cover all bases.

"I prayed. Just in case," she said.

Thubanks, Subelkubie

If you can read the heading of this post, you speak Ubbi-Dubbi (the language of Zoom.) Anne-with-an-e is an expert at it, but I am not quite as quick at translating. So, I'm thankful to Selkie for the link to the translator.

Thinking about fatherhood

Not for myself, of course. But in general.

And I'm a day late with this reflection, because who has time to think on Father's Day?

Well, okay, you got me. Lots of women who are more on top of things than I am actually posted their Father's Day posts on Father's Day. Imagine that. Read some of these wonderful tributes, reflections, and posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Whoosh ... I'm hered out.

Women often talk about the "kind of man" they want to marry -- the sort of father they hope that man will be to their children.

I have to confess, I didn't enter into marriage with any of the normal goals and dreams. I was rather anti-marriage for quite awhile, and when Atticus and I did get married, we were both opposed to children. Not in general, of course, but for ourselves. Didn't need them, didn't want them. So, it would have been absurd for me to think about what kind of father Atticus would become. It wasn't going to enter into the equation.

Then came my conversion. God worked his tricky magic and changed my heart. I wanted a child. Miraculously, God's tricky magic worked on Atticus's heart, too (regarding children, at any rate; Catholicism came later for him.)

Enter Child #1. When Anne was born, it became immediately apparent what kind of father Atticus would be. He loved her madly and would do anything for her. He was bewitched, beguiled, and beside himself with the joy of this miracle thing called "our baby." She was entirely too beautiful and perfect for this world, and he recognized that the first time his eyes locked on her little cross-eyed ones. She was his. He was hers.

And the same thing happened with Betsy and Ramona. It was love at first EPT-sight. He knew the beauty of what was coming and he was all for it. One hundred percent, completely in favor of it and devoted to these little girls long before they were born.

Why? Because that's the kind of man he is, the kind of husband he is. His love for his wife spills out and over to his love for his children and that's the most basic test of "what kind of father will this man be?" Does he love his wife beyond all words and reason? Then he'll love his children with the same expansive heart.

I didn't know it at the time, couldn't have known, but in the fatherhood department I chose well. I chose a man with a good heart. And that heart has seen us through with an unselfishness, a patience and an openness to life that neither of us could have predicted in those "anti-child" days.

Our merciful God was kind to me beyond all reason and justice. When I didn't have a clue what "that kind of man" was, He gave me one anyway. Thank you, Father.

Happy Father's Day!

Visit Among Women for a collection of "father art." Today's is one of my favorites.

Have a wonderful Father's Day!

Sharing a cup of tea

Danielle Bean doesn't need me to tell you about her book, My Cup of Tea: Musings of a Catholic Mom, but I'll tell you anyway (because, as you know, I started this blog just to have a website but soon found that it's quite fun to spout my opinion to anyone and everyone and after all, what's a blog for except to blather on as if anyone and everyone cared about my opinion? And so, not one to disappoint, here's yet another opinion of yet another book.)

I got Danielle's book for Mother's Day. We do that sort of ultra-romantic gift-giving around here: "Atticus, here's the book I want for Mother's Day." It's a compilation of essays, the kind that you can pick up and peruse as you have time (the best kind of reading for a mother.) I loved every one. Danielle's book, like her blog, is sweet, and very funny and full of wisdom. Is she really that young? How come I didn't have faith and motherhood all figured out by the time I was 34? (Well, it could have something to do with the fact that I didn't become a Catholic until I was 35, but I digress ....)

Danielle may humbly say that she doesn't have it all figured out, but what she does have down pat is this: it all comes back to Jesus Christ. And that (and her faith in Him) shines through in her essays.

Our faith can and will get us through anything, including the rollercoaster of emotions that is marriage and motherhood -- perhaps especially that particular rollercoaster, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me without faith.

So, when a romantic gift is looming in your near-future, draw your beloved close and whisper softly in his ear, "Honey, I know just what I want ... and I'm headed to the computer to order it."

You'll thank him for being so romantic, he'll thank you for making gift-giving so easy, and you'll both thank Danielle for making you smile and nod, and laugh and cry (because naturally you'll read passages out loud to him.)

And, speaking of the full range of emotions, visit Danielle today to find out why you don't need an ept to know that you're pregnant.

Morning with Ramona

We had Ramona's friend over yesterday, and this morning Ramona told me:

"C. said that I should use three squares of toilet paper."

Having been the one to personally help C. in the bathroom yesterday, I knew that she used four squares of toilet paper. She told me so after I'd flagrantly pulled off a number of squares too great to count.

"But I thought C. used four squares," I said to Ramona.

"Yes, but I'm only three. So I should use three."

"Oh," I said, the logic dawning. "That makes sense."

"Precisely," said Ramona.

A good day to visit others

Blogs, that is.

Willa reveals that the art of conversation is becoming the heart of their unschooling curriculum.

Dawn, at the beautiful By Sun and Candlelight, has posted her 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers, with links to Maureen (who started it all), Theresa, Meredith and Alice. She also has a list of seven excellent points to keep in mind, which she found at Winter Promise.

Jenn has a beautiful post about the intertwining of family, food and France.

Meredith notes that she can't live without Catholic Mosaic after all.

Meanwhile, at Feminine Genius, Genevieve reports on a study that concludes that institutionalised motherhood doesn't work.

Mike Aquilina continues to inform us about the Church Fathers, specifically, the other Barney.

Jim Manney keeps us up-to-date on some recent Catholic book reviews.

And Ron and Andrea make sure we know that the Unschooling Carnival will soon be making the rounds.

Cruel to be that kind

Are you a Charlotte Mason homeschooler? A nature study nut? An entomologist in the making?

Check out The Lilting House, starting here, for a disgusting (I know, I know ... I'm a homeschooler and I should be able to say fascinating, but I can't ....) series of entries.

My kids, like Lissa's, would be fascinated. I guess I just started too late in the bug business to be quite as enthusiastic as my children are.

And, it's not just bugs that my little girls will hold and coo over ... the other day they captured a garter snake. A snake. My kids.

They really did not get that from me.

Well, it is so much easier to write a check

See Left of the Dial for details ....

Anne-with-an-e and Betsy Ray

Kid stuff
Clearly, this girl understands boys
Well, of course
When They're Older
Ever Have One of Those Days?
Overheard Here
Stuff I Thought Was True
Uh-oh
If You Give a Girl Some Lunch
How to Lose Your Children
Betsy's Take
It's Always Something
Things Only a Mother Would Think
Babby, RIP
Slo-o-o-ow Down
That's one way to look at it
The good, the bad and the ER
Overheard today
Remind me to use the plain cup next time
Dinner Conversations
The Weekly Milk Cup
Betsy and Braille
Thank You ... I think
The Family that Paints Together
Math with Anne
Eighteen Days with Triops
Adventures with Little Women
On Late Nights and Haiku
Multiply, Schmultiply
Living in a Cyberworld
Grateful Betsy
Our Unschoolish Ways
It Lives!
Science Today
Crocheting 101
It was cleaning day
We're going the wrong way
Anne's pro-life comment today
Nothing and Everything
It was a day for stifling laughs
A Homeschooler's Idea of a Playdate
This is life, we can't replay it
We need to stay home
They were listening
I'm in trouble
Should I change my shirt?
Poetry, a mouse and Emily Dickinson
Combining Writing and Motherhood

Ramona

Bedtime with Ramona
I guess there is a certain inevitability to it
Kid Stuff
That's my girl
I don't think that'll be necessary
Ramona Moments
Existential Crisis #47
What I said today
And this is for Lissa
This is for Danielle Bean
This speaks for itself
Ramona knows how to break her mommy's heart
Logic with Ramona
Ramona's Observations
Morning Routine with Ramona
Maybe We've Been Watching Too Much Alton Brown
Nightime with Ramona
Why We Were Up as Early as We Were
Ramona is Four
Ramona at Play
A Ramona Moment
It's Not Easy Being Ramona
A Ramona Moment
She's a Child of Technology
An Evening Conversation with Ramona (on the Easter Bunny)
Just in Case
Morning with Ramona (a toilet paper lesson)
They're Deep
Past Tense with Ramona
Ramona in my glasses
Post-flu conversations with Ramona
Geography with Ramona
Oh, for that fresh perspective
Driving with Ramona
Garage Sale Shopping with Ramona
Breakfast with Ramona
Pwe-view this book
May I be excused?
I'm glad they're so easily pleased
Atticus sums it up
Ramona and Brownies
Best of Ramona: and oldie but goodie
15 cups
Ramona on sleep
Breakfast with Ramona
The Benefits of Modeling Proper Grammar and Usage
Ramona and Mr. Putter
Something else to cry about
Complications
Today's Ramona Quote
Breakfast with Ramona
Ramona Moments
Isn't Chocolate the Fifth Food Group?
Dancing in the Kitchen
Ramona Today
I Can't Top That
Love those adverbs
Ramona and Mr. Putter
Ramona Tonight
Ramona Moments
I'm not sure there's anything cuter
Wouldn't want to eat at that restaurant
Ramona Today
Mommy, you'd be very sad
There are advantages and disadvantages
Ending a lovely Christmas day
I would never erase her
Christmas presents from Ramona
Poetry, or something like it
Sharing the joy of books
Only in the age of computers
What a Princess Eats

Give away my books?

Oh. New Orleans. Okay. Never mind.

Left of the Dial has info on an easy way to help out the New Orleans Public Library.

Wouldn't want to be her child ....

but then, maybe she didn't want to be a mother. The combativeness of her position speaks volumes.

Ramona's picks for Father's Day

Some favorite reading about daddies:

I Love My Daddy by Kate Gleeson
Because Your Daddy Loves You by Andrew Clements
Daddy's Lullaby by Tony Bradman
Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary

And, a delightful poem by Alfred Noyes (read a fascinating bio of him here) "Daddy Fell into the Pond":

Everyone grumbled. The sky was gray.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And there seemed to be nothing beyond,
THEN
Daddy fell into the pond!

Read the rest here.

And, for the Atticus in your life:
Alton Brown teaches us how to brew beer.

Tags: children's books, fathers, literature

Canonically speaking

I've always been fascinated by canon law (well, perhaps I shouldn't say "always" since I have only been a Catholic for 11 years and in my pre-Catholic days scoffed at all things ecclesial ... but I digress ....)

If you, too, are a canon law geek, check out the blog of Edward Peters here. Always fascinating reading.

I love kids' brains

Becky's sons, at Farm School, are engaging in some financial speculation. See it here.

They're deep

Ramona, to her older sister:

"Betsy, you're a complicated person."

*************************************

Totally unrelated, but funny:

Ramona:

"Mommy, how do you spell envelope? Because I've really been wanting to know."

Abundant blessings at the Cottage

Read Alice's beautiful "infancy narrative" here.

It's a lifestyle thing

Becky at Farm School has an excellent post about a recent article in the New York Times.

Though the article contains one throwaway line concerning the social interaction of the kids in question, Becky accurately observes:

that socialization/socializing/sociability or, erm, "social needs" (which puts the focus on the individual's desires rather than society's need for him or her to find his place, doesn't it?) along with "social goals" don't seem to be as much of a concern when one has money.

From the tone of the article one assumes these kids are doing just fine socially since they attend ballet, acting classes or piano lessons.

The article further notes:

Unlike the more familiar home-schoolers of recent years, these families are not trying to get more religion into their children's lives, or escape what some consider the tyranny of the government's hand in schools. In fact, many say they have no argument with ordinary education — it just does not fit their lifestyles.

This assumes much about the motives of "the more familiar home-schoolers of recent years" giving none of us credit for what many of us know: the lifestyle thing is a huge part of our homeschooling. It would seem that if one is less than wealthy, one's lifestyle choices are offbeat or troubling, whereas wealth turns the same choices into a viable option, since the services are paid for.

And, really, this is just another twist on homeschooling ... many of us already view ourselves as (as Sonya Romens, of "Connecting with History termed it) "general contractors of our children's education." We hire out here and there as necessary, as needed or as desired, and use tutors for particular subjects if that's what's best.

Money or no money, it comes down to parents having the freedom to pursue the education they feel is best for their children. What shouldn't be the case, however, is that the choice appears to be more legitmate to the world when said parents have wealth.

Nancy B., Spiderman, and the Pope

Nancy Brown at Flying Stars has a great post about keeping our priorities straight.

As I wrote in a comment to Nancy, I've often had exactly the same thought about which she posted -- when I first read that Pope B16 wanted to retire, I took a look at all the things I don't *like* to do that God calls me to anyway ... and I have often gone back to that little article I read, remembering that Cardinal Ratzinger was looking forward to "some quiet" ... I've gone back to it on too-busy days, on long nights with vomiting kids, on days when nothing seems to be pleasant ... and I remember that God's plans, no matter how tiring, are the best.

She knows how to live without school

Leonie's blog is always full of interesting, unschoolish ways to communicate, educate and fascinate. Now she has a new book out (available through the Australian publisher, Ready Ed Publications) called Teaching with Movies.

It looks like great fun and -- as always, with Leonie -- a user-friendly, family-centered way to introduce discussions and ideas that are much more complex than first meet the eye.

A flutter of fairies

A must-see: drop in on Lapaz Farm Home Learning and marvel at Theresa's magical fairy unit. There have been numerous fairy sightings, and her children have put together a beautiful notebook, enchanting fairy houses, and art projects such as splatter fairies (I love these) and fairy dust pictures. I'm inspired!

By the way, because I love collective nouns, I made up "flutter" for a group of fairies. Then I googled to see if there is an official collective for fairies and found this list, which refers to a number of fairies as "a herd." A herd? I know that fairies can be mischievous and ornery and sometimes unruly, but herd-like? Surely their diminutive stature alone qualifies them for a collective noun more delicate than "herd." Just my opinion, but I think that possibly a thicket of idiots decided on "herd of fairies."

Visit the Carnival of Kid Comedy

Click over to Why Homeschool: The Carnival of Kid Comedy, week 14 to see kids saying the darndest things.

And thanks to Henry Cate for putting it all together.

It's always something

Okay, so my parents are safely back in their own home after a visit here in May.

We're over the flu, which hit right after they left.

We're past Vacation Bible School (and did I mention there were fifty preschoolers in one room? Yup, I'm pretty sure I did.)

We've almost successfully navigated the big Detective-themed birthday party that is Betsy's dream bash (I'll report back on that soon.)

So, what should arise on this fine morning? Just some suspicious-looking sores on Mr. Putter (that would be the cat, not my husband, for any new readers.) So, I whisked him off to the vet and was told, after a considerable wait (are suspicious-looking sores going around? There was a bloody cat in the waiting room ... arrgghh....) that it's not mange, and it's probably not ringworm (but let's send that culture out, just to be sure, 'kay?) and that it's possible that it's due to an allergic condition in the cat. If he is allergic to something in his food, then he'll have to go on a special diet (and that's going to cost a little more than Purina Cat Chow, isn't it? Oh, yes, we all know that it will.)

In the meantime, he needed to be wormed (again) and his ears are infected (again.) I'm giving him pills, a topical skin treatment and ear drops. Twice a day. Again. And he's an indoor cat. He gives new meaning to the experience of rescuing an animal from the pound. I think I know why someone abandoned him.

Of course, the vet hadn't been on my list of things to do today, and it ate up the whole morning. I still needed to get home, feed the kids lunch and decorate the house with crime scene tape (Betsy's idea: yellow crepe paper with "Police Line ... Do Not Cross" written in black marker.) I needed to frost and decorate the magnifying glass cake. I needed to vacuum (to get rid of as much pet dander as I could because one little guest is allergic to our cat.) And, I needed to call the other moms and make a full disclosure about the condition of Mr. Putter (everyone is still coming.)

Life doesn't settle down. It just keeps happening. And this is the little stuff. But, this kind of little stuff, on top of the big stuff is why we should never wait for life to settle down before _________ .... fill in your own blank. There's always a reason to put something off, to wait, to hope that things will be better or quieter, or more routine or more planned. But, it won't happen.

Life doesn't settle down. And that's why, as much as I love plans, I don't rely too heavily on them. They're as changeable as midwestern weather and a cat's health.

Oh, I'll still make them, to be sure. But I never expect them to unfold as anticipated. Life just keeps happening.

Submit to the Carnival of Kids' Comedy

If your children have said something delightfully funny lately, send it on to Henry.

Details for submission are here.

Catholic Mosaic

Elizabeth has done a wonderful job of explaining (and now I don't have to) why I would love to get a copy of Cay Gibson's new book, Catholic Mosaic.

Elizabeth writes:

When the faith is taught within the context of living books a lyrical song is sung, a beautiful image embossed upon a child's soul. Those carefully chosen books become family traditions.

We already have some staples that are related to the liturgical year -- mainly our Advent books. But to extend that teaching and tradition throughout the year? I'm drooling over the possibilities.

Want someone to take your breath away?

Read Willa's post here, from Every Waking Hour.

The Athletic Catholic Woman

Genevieve Kineke's new book, The Authentic Catholic Woman is now available. I cannot wait to read it, and will review it for you as soon as I do.

See this post at Genevieve's blog to see why I titled this post as I did. I love what 5-year-olds think and hear.

Wish Danielle a happy one

Danielle Bean had a birthday. She's still really young, though. Birthdays don't really even count until you hit 40, do they?

And of course, we all know that 40 is the new 30 ... or is it 50 is the new 30? I asked Atticus that and he laughed at me and said I was a ridiculously wishful thinker.

Note to self

Since I do not have the reach of a chimpanzee, and since there is no way I could have covered my entire back and since I now am sporting the burned and blotchy "yes-I-got-the-sunblock-there-but-not-there" look, I shall remember, when I next take the kids to the pool, to have my friend coat, glaze, cover and bury my back in my good ole SPF 50.

Post-Pentecost

I just read a beautiful post at Family in Feast and Feria about Pentecost. Jenn says:

After this grace-filled moment, we cannot stay in the Upper Room. We have to go forth to know, love and serve God. That is what the Ordinary Time is for us: the manifestation of the Holy Spirit descending upon the Church. Here we learn, grow, and live with the graces left by the Holy Spirit. We have different feasts of saints throughout the next few months that give us examples of how to answer the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, and how to be soldiers of Christ.

What a perfectly lovely way to say that there is nothing ordinary about ordinary time, although Jenn also spells out why it's called "ordinary" time, which really has nothing to do with being commonplace.


And, see this post from Jenn's food blog for a definition of "feria."

Charm yourself to sleep

We love this book. Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep, by Joyce Dunbar, is a must-read with your little ones. It is so sweet and cozy. The depiction of sibling love and responsibility is a heart-warmer and the illustrations by Debi Gliori are beautiful.

Ramona and I like to snuggle in with this one. And yes, I always come away from it feeling happy before I go to sleep.

Organize your life

I love forms and lists and plans and calendars. I don't always follow them, but I love them. I relish having a starting point and an idea of where we're headed. We may often deviate from the plan, but I like it to be in place, at least theoretically.

Here are a few free, online resources that offer some great forms to help you get your plans on paper:

Donna Young's Printables and Resources
Organized Home.com
FlyLady's Control Journal
The Homeschool Mom's forms and planners
Grocery List from Organized Times.com
Another printable grocery list from Digital-Women.com
Free Printable Calendar Templates

If you're willing to invest a few dollars in being more organized, Michele Quigley, at Family Centered Press, created a wonderful Catholic Woman's Daily Planner that includes feast days and solemnities, mysteries of the Rosary and other extras. Additional packets for lesson or meal planning can also be purchased. I used Michele's planner last year and loved it.

Part of the fun of summer is planning our homeschooling journeys, even if we don't always end up at the originally intended destinations. In spite of our many side trips, planning keeps me aware of the big picture and accountable to the kids, my husband-the-principal, and myself.

Past tense with Ramona

Telling us about a dream she had last night:

"Do you know what I drumt last night?"


Explaining to her sisters that Vacation Bible School involved digging:

"We dag in the sand for treasures."


Reminiscing about swinging:

"Remember when I swang yesterday?"

Much ado about Shakespeare

The Folger Shakespeare Library elicits covetous feelings in me for those who live in the DC area. Sigh. I'll have to settle for the library's online resources, such as lesson plans, study guides, and a "Shakespeare for Kids" section that looks like fun.

Check out their links page, too. Just a few clicks, and you've got a complete unit study.

Tags: Shakespeare, unit studies, home education

It's so much faster than typing

If you've never visited Project Gutenberg, you're in for a treat. There are over 18,000 books online there, and when I need to grab a quote from Little Women or The Secret Garden, Project Gutenberg is my secret weapon.

These e-books are free and the contents may be used freely (with exceptions -- see the website) as the U.S. copyrights have expired (but check further if you're not in the U.S.) Of course, they can always use help in the form of donations, proofreaders and spreading the word.

I used to have a similar (though much, much smaller) site bookmarked, but stopped using it when I noticed that they ran ads for term paper mills. Grrrr ....

Project Gutenberg is the original. I'm grateful for it. And it's so much faster than typing.

Tag: Books

Come, Holy Spirit!

Today is Pentecost, the day on which we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. It's also the birthday of the Church, and is a day fit for celebration.

For a list of great ideas, see this page at Women for Faith and Family. Any list that includes a birthday cake is worth spending time on (in my humble, sugar-addicted opinion.)

Tomorrow, we'll be back to Ordinary Time. The Easter decorations will all come down, and life once again will be "ordinary."

And yet, I find nothing about day-to-day existence in this world to be ordinary, if by that one means dull and pedestrian. "Ordinary Time" is full of ideas, things and people to celebrate, discover and learn about.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Tag: Catholic Faith

One book for girls?

Book Buds has a challenge going:

Describe the ONE book you believe no highly intelligent, very motivated pre-teenaged girl should grow up without.

Go here to weigh in, and thanks to Big A little a for directing me to Book Buds.

We're back among the living

We're walking, talking, functioning, eating real food and (drum roll, please ...)
coffee sounds delicious for the first time since Monday.

Thanks to all of you who commented and sent "Get well" notes. Your prayers, a little time, saltines and 7-up got us through, as always.

The biggest test of "Am I over this?" came yesterday. Picture this:

50 preschoolers

Vacation Bible School

50 preschoolers (Oh, did I mention them already? Did I say they were all in one room?)

And still I can say, "I'm over the flu."

Convincing evidence, no?

Ramona Moments

After trying on my glasses, she looked at me (a bit cross-eyed behind the strongly-correcting lenses) and said, "Everything looks soggy."