A good reminder

from Pleasant View Schoolhouse, one of the "Mommy blogs" in my Google Reader:


Advice for young moms? Honey, it's different for you. Don't expect to be able to do everything during these days. These days are the most challenging parenting you'll do. Keep up with the laundry, feed your family fresh vegetables, sweep the floor when you have to, get some fresh air, and try, try, try to do a little something creative every day. You'll feel so much better.


I really needed to hear this. Most days I feel like this whole homeschooling mom thing is a superhuman task, and I often go to bed discouraged, mulling over all the things I didn't do on a given day. I know it will get easier, and soon, but that's small comfort when I look around and see all the dust and clutter building up, and feel like a failure of a homemaker -- or when I have to forgo playing with the littles because the laundry is starting to back up or I have to plan lessons or make necessary phone calls I've been putting off for weeks. There is nothing harder or more personally demanding than being a mother of small children, a homemaker, and a homeschooler all in one. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage my time so that I fulfill all my duties reasonably well (I'm so beyond expecting perfection) and yet have occasional opportunities to be creative and thereby refresh my spirit. It's hard when I live in the completely unreasonable terror of CPS knocking on the door and determining that I am unfit to keep these children because they have jam on their faces, or the floor hasn't been vacuumed yet this week, or there are dirty finger smudges all over the walls. Yes, unreasonable, I know. To each his own nightmare. I've never handled criticism well, so living in fear of being judged by an authority with disastrous consequences is just one of the many subconscious manifestations of that ever-present maternal guilt. (We all know we could be doing better, right?)

I think I need to get out of the house more.

Because I love you all SO much

I really, really want to share with you some of the choice songs that have been going through my head lately, because I have been hearing them sung by small people in the car, during meals, during school time, before bed, first thing in the morning....

They are from this most excellent album, which every kid should have in order to drive his parents nuts.

Here Katie is practicing her handwriting by transcribing the chorus from track #4. (think Offenbach)

translation: "Oh can you do the Can Can?
If you can then I can"
[I can Can Can if you Can Can
Can you Can Can...]

Another gem is from a famous string piece by Mozart (I'll give you one guess):
"Please don't play your violin at night
Wolfgang go to bed, turn out the light..."
The piece goes on to suggest that the soprano should try counting sheep.
["You should trying counting sheep."
"No sheep won't help me sleep
Sleep sleep sleep sleep,
Sheep sheep sheep sheep,
Sheep won't help me sleep, won't help me sleep."
"Try counting sheep."]

Letting alone the fact that I will NEVER be able to hear certain classical pieces the same ever again, this is an extremely well done album. Almost every song tells something about the music or the composer. So whenever the kids hear one of these songs in the future, they'll remember the lyrics and therefore the composer. (Miriam is singing the songs as she reads over my shoulder while I type.)

For example, the title track, Beethoven's Wig, is -- what else? -- his Fifth Symphony:
"Beethoven's wig... is very big...."

There's also "Franz Liszt, the famous pianist" for the Hungarian Rhapsody #2;

a piece you can guess from the lyrics:
"Here's a short Beethoven piano piece,
He wrote this piece,
Just for Elise."

Hayden's Surprise Symphony:
"Listen very carefully,
To this noted symphony,
Maybe you will recognize,
Haydn's Great Surprise." *BAM!*

The Pizzicato from Sylvia by Delibes:
"You left the bathroom water dripping Sylvia,
Into the sink it's drip, drip dripping Sylvia..."

And the fun one, the 1812 Overture:
"The crowds were cheering at the concert hall (rah! rah!)
The night Tchaikovsky shot a cannonball (rah! rah!)
It was the loudest cannon that you'll ever hear,
It was so loud it even shook the chandelier!"

My personal all-time favorite, and one which I plan to memorize (especially when we get to studying English history), is all the rulers of England from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II set to Purcell's Trumpet Tune (popular at weddings). If you go to the Amazon page you can hear a sample (track #7).
"First came William, then a second William,
Henry, Stephen, then a second Hank,
Next was Richard called the Lion Hearted,
Evil John, then one more Henry ro-o-ose to the rank."

It's obvious the people who made this CD had fun doing it. The lyrics are extremely clever. I see that there are 3 more similar albums available on Amazon -- we may need to acquire them. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing "Sing Verdi Very Loud" on Album 2, set to La donna e mobile by -- of course -- Verdi.

Meet Mary and Laura Ingalls

Last night after their baths I put the girls' hair up in rag curls. It took a while, but they looked so cute with their hair all knobby.


This morning I took them out, and WOW!

Katie's was an unbelievable bush, since her hair is so fine. But I was able to tame them into larger boingy ringlets. Miriam's came out very soft and wavy.

And you know what?

It is very, very hard to get mad at a little girl in ringlets.

Amen, Bruthah!

For some inexplicable reason, Mr. Pickles taught this to Joseph on a Sunday morning. BEFORE Mass.



Joseph got really into the Allelulia that Sunday. And now randomly he'll break out with "Play Lord!" Ahh, it's fun to have trained monkeys.

A Peek into the Pickle Jar

Mr. Pickles is working on homework, and I am DONE with sewing for tonight, but I feel I ought to be productive since he's sitting right next to me with HIS computer open. So here are a few snapshots from our life.

An alternate title could be: What Happens When You Let The Resident Five-Year-Old Have The Camera.

For example, you get shots of lunch (with Daddy's creative touch).


And Someone's favorite toys.



And, of course, lots of pictures of Someone's siblings, especially one's little brother, since he is the easiest and most interesting thing to photograph.



...even when he doesn't want to be.

I have lots more pictures from the 5yo's POV, but they're mostly of things like the kitchen counters, a water bottle, and a very blurry... something. I'll spare you those.

Here's something sweet I caught the other night as I was going to bed.

(Yes, I moved Miriam back to her spot after I took the shot.)


Those who easily get the willies might want to skip this one of "gardener's gold":

jibblyjibblyjibbly
(I should leave pots in this stairwell every fall, to attract worms for spring gardening!)

Finally, slowly but surely:

Waiting for the zipper next, a big project which requires more brain cells than are currently functioning this evening. (hanging next to the Chicago Flower Girl Dress, used as a reference for answering things like "now how in the heck did I get that to work?!?") I might actually get this done EARLY! Quick! Time to procrastinate!

Me and Mrs. Singer

Miriam's First Holy Communion is in two weeks. Do you hear me? TWO WEEKS!! (Many of you still have invitations on the way -- they're coming, we promise!)


So if anyone needs me over the next 13 days, I'll be right in that chair.

Happy Easter!

I can't believe it -- I'm actually posting about an event the day after! What will this do to my blogging reputation?

Well, once again we made it to the whole Triduum. The only reason we're able to do it is that the liturgies are so different and striking and impressive, each in its own way. The small fry were impressed by such things as the covered statues (Joseph: "Jesus? Hiding! No see-it!"), the beaten sticks instead of bells, and the empty holy water fonts. Miriam noticed that there was no organ from the Gloria on Holy Thursday until the Gloria at the Vigil. Joseph kept talking about Jesus' owies, and when it came time for the Veneration of the Cross, he gave the crucifix a big ol' kiss.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's such a blessing to be a part of this parish, where they GET liturgy. It's so reverent -- everyone truly understands his role. Our pastor is such a gift. He is an amazing, holy man. He's the oldest of 7 sons (and mentions frequently what a saint his mother is), whose father died a short while ago saving his youngest son from drowning. As tragic as it was, what an example of total self-gift that father gave his sons! No greater love...

Back to liturgy -- there are also some things we do in our domestic church that bring the meaning of these days home. The kids especially looked forward to decorating eggs this year. So Holy Saturday we cleared the decks, battened down the hatches, and generally tried to keep food coloring from permanently staining anything.

Since I'm pretty much the only one who will eat hard boiled eggs around here, I strictly limited the number of eggs each child could dye. They each got 4. And as we had 7 colors, most of their eggs ended up various shades of purple, since every egg had to be dipped in several colors.

Joseph didn't get that whole limiting thing -- he would have been happy dropping eggs into dye and fishing them out all day. He was not happy with us for insisting he was all done.

"No 'mile!"


Okay, maybe a little one.

Going to the Vigil that night was... interesting. Joseph was the only one who napped that afternoon, so everyone was pretty tired, since it began after their bedtime. After about the third reading, Katie curled up with her head in my lap and promptly went to sleep. She slept through both the Gloria (with trumpeting organ and ringing bells) and the Hallelujah chorus sung by the choir at the end of Mass. Pretty impressive. Miriam made it through all 2 1/2 hours, although she almost fell over during the consecration. Joseph, the little stinker, would NOT go to sleep. He was pretty good, though, until about the last 5-10 minutes, after he had passed through the obviously-tired, crazy-silly, and beyond-tired phases, to sheer grouchiness. I still can't believe he stayed up until 11 pm. Of course, all 3 crashed in the car on the way home. And right now, Joseph just woke up from a 3-hour nap. (Still recovering!)

The next morning Katie woke us up shortly after 6 to inform us that the Easter Bunny had come during the night, and hid the eggs in some very silly places. Normally she doesn't wake us up in the mornings, but this morning she just couldn't wait! We finally stumbled out of bed so the kids could begin hunting.

Warning: this video is mainly for grandparents who have the patience actually to watch tousle-headed little kids hunting for eggs in their jammies. :)



I still remember little Joseph last year figuring out the whole egg hunting thing -- Joseph got the hang of it really quickly this year!

the fruit of their spoils

ah, sweet aftermath

Mm, candy and Lucky Charms for breakfast!



and, of course, Peeps
(note: the management assumes no responsibility for the videographing style of the camera operator)

I also made the traditional Kulich (Russian Easter bread), sans golden raisins and candied fruit peel because we all agree those are nasty things which ruin a good sweet bread. Sadly we didn't have any brandy to add (I KNEW I left something off the shopping list!), but it tasted delish nonetheless. The bread was actually initially twice as tall as this, but it was so dense that it collapsed under its own weight!

We had a big Easter lunch (once again, I grossly underestimated how long it takes to heat up a bone-in ham. 10 mins. per lb., my foot!) complete with mostly warm ham, scalloped potatoes, steamed asparagus, crescent rolls, and fruit cocktail, and sparkling cranberry-grape juice to drink (non-alcoholic Easter this year, alas!). I also made 2 doz. cupcakes which I haven't decorated yet, and which we have yet to touch. So far chocolate and peeps have been an adequate dessert (not to mention snacks). :) Thankfully no one ate himself sick, although Katie came pretty close and was required to cease all candy consumption for several hours.

That afternoon we were invited to some dear friends' for a monster Easter Egg Hunt, because we didn't have enough candy in the house already. :) It was a great time, with great food and great conversation, and miraculously, no comparison of labor stories! (Just swapping pregnancy horrors and baby spit-up stories.) :) Katie is an awesome little egg-hunter. She was fearsome to behold, running full-tilt in her long, smocked-front rose-print Easter dress and white heels, hair flying in her speed. Why do I never think to bring the camera to things like this? Joseph's egg hunting experienced a temporary hold, since after he had found two eggs he saw an array of trucks on the patio and was momentarily distracted. :) After several minutes he decided he wanted to find more eggs, but by that time the galloping hordes had gotten most of them. He found 2 or 3 more, which was fine with him. He opened one, ate the candy inside, then went back to playing with the trucks. :) A good day for him.

A good day for everyone -- filled with all the traditional joys that make celebrating Holy Days as wonderful as they are! Hope yours was as blessed!

Our toddler has a potty mouth

Nine months after his sisters, Joseph has reached the Language Explosion Stage. When I first started writing this post almost a month ago, he was still getting the hang of this whole talking thing. But all of a sudden he's developed quite the vocabulary, even stringing a few words together to make toddler sentences (like "owie - head - door"). And he's been mastering l's and r's, which I thought was pretty advanced for this age. (I love how he says "shlockit" for chocolate.) However, he still needs some translation -- he's progressed from Old Solar to some Chinese (I think) mixed with English. At any rate, he has a hard time with beginning consonants. He likes replacing them all with initial f's, which can be really cute or really hilarious. Here are some frequent toddler gems:

faw -- straw

feep -- sweep

fain -- train

feeve -- sleeve

fippy -- slippy

fink -- drink

fee -- tree

foshesh -- (St.) Joseph

fuss -- bus

&#@! -- truck (by far his favorite word, naturlich)

...Or as Mr. Pickles says, there's nothing like coming home from work and hearing your toddler dropping f-bombs all over the place.



Ah, these are the golden moments we savor, because we know we can use them as ammo when the children become obnoxious teenagers. (tee hee hee...)

The 2010 Birthday Week Extravaganza!!!

Pant pant pant... wheeze... wheeze... Phew, okay, we made it. Everyone successfully turned one year older, and had fun doing it. My job is done for another year. (phew)

Seriously though, this is my latest excuse for not blogging -- preparations for, celebrating of, and recovery from what we call around here "Birthday Week." As all you faithful reader (hi, Mom!) know, we've got 3 immediately family members who celebrate birthdays within 4 days of each other, let alone various nieces, nephews, (whose presents are coming! I promise!) and in-laws. It's a challenge for the Chief Party Planner (ahem) to prepare for each celebration separately and make sure each one gets its own focus, gifts, requisite sugarfest, and theme. This year was an especial challenge as I was smack-dab in the middle of my turn teaching for the homeschool co-op, in addition to prepping for a monthly Little Flowers meeting. Oh, and I'm pregnant, so everything's a little hazy these days anyway. (short term memory? what's that again?) And we all know how well I prepare for things (like friends-and-relations' birthdays) in advance. ("Oh, it was your birthday yesterday? That's right -- I had it on the calendar... hope it was happy!")

But we muddled through, and (I hope) everyone enjoyed his respective day of celebration.

First came our big girl! Miriam turned 8 on March 19. We keep telling her how smart she was to be born on the Solemnity of St. Joseph. She will never have to fast on her birthday. This year, her birthday being on a Friday, she really lived it up by requesting for her birthday dinner... tomato soup... with grilled... cheese.... Talk about wasted opportunity!! If Mr. Pickles had his birthday on this day, he would have requested steak fried with bacon served on ham.


Earlier that day we hosted a Little Flowers meeting at our house, so Miriam got to have a bunch of girls over even though technically it was still a school day (although we would have taken it off). We served them strawberry cupcakes with chocolate icing for snack, and sent everybody home all full of sugar just before lunch. :) In the afternoon Miriam really wanted to go swimming, but her boring, tired, pregnant, slow Mommy balked at that idea, and suggested she go outside and enjoy the lovely, beautiful, warm, sunny day and for PITY's sake please stop requiring me to entertain you!! (okay, maybe not that last part) So she went out and picked wildflowers growing in neighbors' lawns (aka weeds -- so I didn't think they would mind), and skipped and frolicked. At one point as she was skipping down the sidewalk I heard her singing to herself, "This is the best birthday ever!!" Considering she says that every year, it's good to know I'm 8 for 8. :)

In honor of the spring weather, we opened the season by sitting on the front steps and painting our toes. (So it's officially spring now.) After 2 o'clock her neighborhood friends came home from school, and they had fun outside. Miriam wanted to paint. Sure! Let's keep the mess outside!

Joseph awoke from his nap by this point, and he wanted to join in on the action. By the time they were all done, I think everyone's picture was brown, the sidewalk was purple, and Joseph had blue and green feet. (The paintings that were decorated with grass found their way into the trashcan quickly, I'm afraid to say. I'm not much of a one for modern art.)

For our gift to Miriam we gave her her own set of dishes, since the last set I'd bought for her when she grew out of baby dishes had all been destroyed in various ways. I wish I'd taken a picture of her new ones -- they're very pretty. She also got tons of books which are sitting in a stack in her room and through which she is rapidly progressing; some Littlest Pet Shop toys; princess Polly Pockets; cash monies; and sundry other items, all of which she was delighted to receive. Thank you notes are forthcoming... right after we finish the 1st Communion invitations (which are also forthcoming)...

Anyway, a week after her birthday the Ringling Bros. circus opened near us, and opening night is half price, so OF COURSE she wanted to go and bring two of her friends!

Because I'm insane, I took all 4 girls by myself. (Joseph is really too young, so Mr. Pickles stayed home with him.) They did really well -- I laid down the law on the way about The Buddy System, Staying Together, and Listening to Directions. We all had a great time, the animals were wonderful, the acrobats were amazing, the magic tricks were spectacular (I'm still trying to figure one out!), and the cotton candy was outrageously expensive. (but it came with a magician hat!) The only hitch was that I backed into a county-owned truck driven by a police detective as we were trying to leave the parking lot. Doh. Fortunately the damage on the truck's bumper was so invisible that the driver said he didn't think his supervisor would make a big deal of it. Our bumper however... well, now we know what we're going to be spending this year's tax return on. AND we missed the magic window of leaving the parking lot earlier than the mob, so we had to sit for another 20 mins. waiting for everyone else to file out first. But that just gave the big girls more time together telling silly jokes and teaching each other silly songs in the back seat. (Katie fell asleep almost as soon as I had her buckled in.)

So, one down, two to go!

Next was Joseph, who also got to live it up, his birthday falling on Sunday this year. We had a small brunch-time party for him, with donuts in lieu of cake. Whenever someone says "birthday," he will think for a moment, then come out with "Birday, donut, candow!" I guess he was amused by the fact that his birthday cake was a donut. ("shlockit" of course)

For him we also got his own set of dishes. (seems to be becoming a theme for our family) We also got him one of those playroom rugs with roads on it, which is good because for other presents he totally made out in the trucks department, and he couldn't be more delighted! At one point I commented on this fact, just as he was opening a present which was a book -- about trucks! One truck in particular we called his Wife, because he wouldn't be parted from it. He refused to go to bed without it, and fell asleep with his arm curled around it.

His party was well attended by princess fairies and Little Red Riding Hood. (and some other boys to bring up the testosterone levels a bit)

The next day was Mr. Pickles' birthday, the Big XXXIV!

Kind of sadly kind of not, he wasn't feeling that great. So he took the day off work, took it easy, got a nap, played video games -- so, all in all, not too bad a birthday! For dinner he requested lobster-stuffed ravioli (it's seafood, so it's penitential, right?) with tiramisu for dessert, yummity yum. I got him a grilling cookbook to have fun with this summer.

There aren't as many pictures of his birthday -- well, that's not true, there are a couple choice ones, but let's give the man a chance to keep his dignity intact, in his old age. :)

So there we have it, birthday week 2010! Now whenever Joseph sees a candle (especially at church), he gasps and shouts out, "Birday! Birday!" Poor little Katie was feeling a bit neglected among all the attention everyone else was getting, so I'm thinking of throwing her a half-birthday party next month. (which will basically be a playdate with cupcakes -- just my planning energy level) :) As challenging as all this was, I'm so glad I get to be the one who plans the parties! It's fun thinking about all the little ways to make each beloved family member feel treasured. And it's so satisfying when I see that they are pleased. Just one of the privileges of being Queen Mother -- getting to dedicate holidays and commission feasts. Can there be anything more fun than that?

The Wearin' o' the Green

Sure an' 'tis a Happy St. Paddy's day we do be wishin' to ye all!


We even made a special trip to Old Navy last week to be sure we were properly outfitted, lest the kids' Irish grandmother disown them. :) Next year I think I'll buy them white t-shirts and have them just roll downhill on the grass -- the grass stain on Joseph' knee (which you can't see) is exactly the same color as his shirt.

Also, a very happy birthday on this special day to Miz Anna Kathlene!