Dinner Conversation

Every day at dinner for many years we have talked about:
1. What was the best thing about today?
2. What was the worst thing about today?
3. What are you looking forward to about tomorrow?
4. How did you show the love of Christ today? (Recently added)
Most days we get through the questions pretty easily, other days, someone gets excused from the table before we finish or we don't get to all four. I am not big on talking while eating, but we found it necessary to guide dinner conversation to avoid the occasional yelling, screaming, sassing and eye rolling that comes along with our boy-girl-boy-girl family.
Some of the face turners :)
"Where are we going tomorrow?" asked almost everyday by Number Two Son in response to question 3 when he was just learning how to speak. Number One Daughter seems to think it us funny if she asks, honestly, it is just annoying.
Number One Son always has tall tales about an adventure building, digging, climbing or whittling in the backyard. We call his bluff and he reels it in. One of these days he is going to find someone who hangs on every word and laughs at all his un-funny jokes. I wish that was me, but it is not. I like non-fiction and the truth!

Bullies Using Food to Harass Allergic Kids

A new study authored by Christopher Weiss, PhD, from FAAN, and Scott
Sicherer, MD, Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mt. Sinai in New York,
gives new insights on the scope and prevalence of bullying children
due to their food allergies:

- Almost one-quarter of children in all age groups were reported to
have been bullied, teased or harassed because of their food allergy;
- 82 % of the occurrences were at school;
- 80 % of the occurrences were by classmates;
- 21 % of the occurrences were by teachers or other school staff.

Before we thought about homeschooling, I believe we got a clear
message that that is exactly what God wanted us to do. We struggle to
have family events that do not result in days and days of fussy, sick
children. Food is the center of our culture. It seems like every
celebration has at the center of it, a tempting not-allowed food. It
is so hard to go to a movie and not have popcorn, nachos at a ball
game or pizza and cake at a birthday party.

I am still in shock that adults accounted for 21% of bullying.
Children need to be educated and redirected, but adults should know
better.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Getting Started Again

I am having the hardest time getting started this school year. Even though I've generally planned to start "school" the day after labor Day. We usually start when Hubby goes back to work, three weeks before our planned date. Not this year. We started our wonderful co-op yesterday, so we have started something and I finally got a replacement copy of Hooked-on-Phonics for Number One Daughter, so things are happening, but not like they have in the past. I usually spend time in the summer getting prepared. This summer, I worked more than I have since I left full-time employment 8 years ago when Number One Son was born. Also, we finally got the computer up and going and it has been monopolized by everyone but me. That just has to stop! Number One Son can do his auditory training program, but just tooling around when I need to do CEUs, plan meetings or activities, etc... Can't happen anymore. I guess I'll have to put up a sign up sheet next to the computer since 5 of us are using it now! The house is such a wreck. Hubby usually helps out in that department, but it was all he could do to keep track of our very busy, destructive kids when I was away for 6-8 hours a day for a month. We have so much to do, but we have a few more days to get some dishes done, floors cleaned, books shelved, walls scrubbed, laundry sorted... Number One Daughter and I sorted boy clothes yesterday. She was crazy-happy to help. She loves for others to hand down clothes, but has a drop-down-red-face-convulsive-FIT if I put her clothes in a bag to give away. I'll have to do it when she is sleeping or on a date with Hubby ;). We have been so blessed to have generous family and friends pass clothes to us, but I've been horrible about sorting and passing on clothes to others. I've been praying the Novena to the Infant of Prague to help us get our house organized, maybe I'm asking for the wrong thing?

St. Gertrude the Great's Prayer for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

Jesus dictated the following prayer to St. Gertrude the Great. He said it will release 1,000 souls from purgatory each time it is said:

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen."

Number One Son and Number One Daughter are fascinated by this prayer. I wonder if they can commit it to memory? It is definately enpowering for little ones to know they can get holy souls to Heaven.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG Monday

I've been waking up to male sure Hubby gets to work. He is recovering from a sinus infection and is really tired. I got snacks made and packed, kids fed and dressed and we headed out the door. Our Tahoe has been overheating so Hubby left us The Blazer. We are out the door, I unlock the car, load in our goodies, turn on the car, turn on the A/C and close the door to put the little ones in. At the exact same time I'm closing the door, Number One Son somehow managed to open and immediately close the passenger door and the car locks, running, A/C full blast with my purse and phone on the front seat. The house was locked. The kids and I headed to the backyard. I managed to push put the wood next to the window unit out and to my shock, Number One Daughter said, "yes" when I told her to crawl through the window to open the door from the inside with a key. Yea! Once upon a time, I had a spare Blazer key, but I couldn't find it. The kids and I walked next door to The Church and called Hubby and left a message on voicemail. Hubby had the spare key in his wallet. Almost two hours later, Hubby was able to get away from work, rush home, unlock the Blazer, turn it off, grab my purse, bring it inside, and rush back to work. Well, we missed Park Day. I felt so bad that I couldn't let our friends know what was happening until it was just about over. The rest of the day was filled with meltdowns and sibling fights. I headed off to the office to see my one patient. After work I had planned to take care of some paperwork. My boss came in and shared some medical news and them it was almost 7:00 PM and I didn't get my paperwork done. I came home, picked up Number One Daughter to reward her for helping out earlier in the day. So we went to Target then HEB, home to feed the kids and pets, brush teeth and then to bed. It makes me tired just thinking about it. My gift from heaven was Number One Daughter immediately saying, "yes."

My Wonderful World

I went to a RE Teacher meeting tonight and I was saddened by what I heard. Parents don't bring their children to Mass, even with their precious angels ask them. Our little world is full of families that go to Mass, pray together and some are daily Communicants! We always went to Church, my mother insisted. She did stop fighting with us at one point and left us at home. If we got up and got ready, we could go with her. Reverse psychology? I'll admit when the kids are having a bad day, I go without them, but they certainly go more than they don't and we try to go to one Daily Mass a week. Summer has not been good for our daily Mass attendance, but I'm determined to change that. I guess instead of guilting parents into taking their children to Mass, we will pray for them and make a point of offering sacrifices for Catholics who don't go to Mass or take their children.

blood types

We didn't find out what blood type our kids were, for some reason, they either don't share that information or they don't do the test at the hospital. I ordered kits for all of us as a science experiment. Number One Son was very excited to do the test, although I didn't really want to yesterday. He was tired from swimming and I needed help from hubby who had to hold Smart Puppy all day after he got neutered. I broke down and got out the kit. After we got started, he chickened out, but we finally convinced him, after much drama, to"cowboy up!" His result, O positive, very curious since Hubby said he was AB positive and I am A positive. Well, I was just too curious, Hubby is really O positive. Number Two Son was so brave insisting that he have a turn too. No tears and O positive. Well, honestly, I thought at least one of them would have my blood type, but there was one last hope. I bribed Number One Daughter and she finally relented and I couldn't believe it, A negative! I am bummed, Rh negative blood can be a problem for women of they marry a Rh positive man. What are the odds? I'm not sure, but I don't know anyone in the family with Rh negative (I'll have to ask around), but scientifically, it is possible.

Un Attached Society

Number One Son and Hubby went to a Cub Scout overnight at the Dallas Zoo yesterday. Number One Daughter and Number Two Son and I went to the Austin Zoo, a rescue Zoo about 15 minutes from our house on most days. There was something going on with small imported cars at the CapMetro commuter lot, so it took us much longer to get there than usual. The Zoo trip is always fun for the kids and a big workout for me. The Hill Country terrain is rough no matter what kind of stroller you are pushing. When we were riding the train a large birthday party group got on. The little boy in front of us was about Number One Son's age, maybe 6 or 7. He wanted to be away from his mother and that seemed okay with her. I found this very strange. All of our children want to be with us. Isn't that the way is is supposed to be? Has society trained children from an early age (with daycare and school) that you shouldn't want to be with your parents. The way I read it, children aren't supposed to leave their parent until they get married. Our hope and prayers are that our children will want to be with us and that we will remain a close family forever to eternity.

guilty as charged

We met with our Pastor on Tuesday about scheduling guided adoration with the homeschool children. The first thing Number One Son told him when we greeted him at the door, "We didn't go to church on Christmas, we were too busy with our family." BUSTED! I'm curious if he knew it was a sin that needed confessing? It has been several weeks since Christmas and we have been to Sunday Mass, First Friday, New Yea's since then. Hmm, is little Mr. Unfocused eavesdropping? Dopes he have a 6th sense? Momma is very curious.

The Holy Family

Since today is the feast of the Holy Family, I thought I'd share a revelation that Number One Son had last week. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the Holy Family, So I know their names: Joseph Holy, Mary Holy and Jesus Holy."

I'm not like other kids

Really? Number One Son said that to me when we were getting ready for bed the other night. I asked him what he meant and he proceeded to tell me that he liked to build things and he likes science experiments and animals better than playing sports. He also likes to talk and that is not necessarily conducive to little boy play at the park. He will climb trees and toss the basketball around, but he is too young to understand the big boy war games. He is very verbal, but that only helps him with the girls. Girls are generally much better listeners. He is perfectly willing to play along, but if he is in charge, they are creating something (robots, airplanes,cars, etc...) if the others have something to say about it, it is a fort.

HOP Rocks!

Hubby added memory to our computer so I was able to load the CD ROM for the Hooked on Phonics program that Number One Son and I have been working on since August. He spent 2 hours reading on the computer yesterday! It tracks the words he can read and as of this morning, he can read 54 words. He can probably read a few more than that since we have also been working on sight words that I thought were important. He is so proud of himself. He could barely go to sleep last night after he heard the little bee say, "You are a reader!" If Momma or Daddy say it, nada. It just doesn't stick like when a little animated bee says it.

YES!

Number One Son had a breakthrough in reading yesterday. First, he asked me to do school. We had to go to the grocery store before our school time yesterday. He read his books without me asking and then I sat him down with a new story and he did it all by himself! He read it again because I was so excited and said, "I'm going to do it again, because I like to make you happy." We were hugging, kissing and giving high fives. We stopped while we were ahead, I like him to leave wanting more. It seems to be working.