We’ve been stuck inside for a long, long time, and tempers can flare
and maybe we don’t feel as sorry as we should
but then Mama calls us in for supper
and we run right in
or at least we try. (Yes, I actually had to get her unstuck. That mud is not fooling around!)
P.S. No sisters were harmed in the making of this photodrama. But they did get muddy. Really, rea
Here’s what I found on the dining room table this morning. They would have submitted it to the school’s director today, too, except that someone spilled coffee(?) on it.
Text:
NAP PETITION
We, the 3/4 and 5/6 [grade classrooms], believe that it is unjust that the K and K alone are allowed naps, while we carry heavier burdens, both figuratively and literally. Are we unworthy of naps? Have we committed some wrong that degrades us? If so, please speak up! If not just remember that Tyranny is no substitute for nap-time. Thank you.
1. My sister Sarah looks like she in labor with sweet Naomi, who is baby #8 (and daughter #7!). Our Lady and St. Gerard Majella, please intercede for Sarah and Naomi for a fast and easy delivery and for peace and joy for the whole family.
2. Another sibling just got home from the hospital with a child who was diagnosed with an unexpected medical condition. In the name of Jesus, we ask for strength and courage for the family as they learn how to care for this child.
3. As long as I am asking for prayers from you lovely people, please throw in a quick prayer for our family as we deal with some situations. Sorry, vague intentions are the worst! We are okay, but need to figure out the best way to handle some . . . stuff.
Many, many thanks! I will keep you all in my prayers, IF you pray for me. Ha, just kidding.
As requested, here are pictures of the finished valentines my kids prepared to give out today(although it turned out to be yet another snow day):
And here is the valentine mailbox my son made:
I’m so proud. Yes, we carefully screen and censor the few episodes of Futuramathey’re allowed to watch! I’m not altogether thrilled that Bender is such a captivating role model for them; but at least they laugh when my husband says, “OK, kids. It’s 9:00. You know what that means: Daddy’s sick of looking at you, so go to bed..”
As for the adult plans, we are (as I mentioned) watching House of Cards and eating the rest of the chocolate I bought. He likes the gross gooey ones, and I like the gross fruity ones. And that’s why you need two people in a marriage.
We’ve been doing 3-D lollipop valentines for the last few years. Here is how it turns out when a normal family does this project:
PIC 3D lollipop valentine
Cute, eh? It is easy:
1. Take a picture of your kid extending a fist toward the camera. Leave some blank space in the background for the lollipop and message.
2. If you like, photoshop a greeting onto the image. If you are alert, you will remember how to paste things in with a transparent background; and if you care, you will be able to talk your kids out of choosing tacky images. (This year, I was neither alert nor did I care.)
3. Print out enough photos for the class. We use Walmart’s photo service – turns out fine.
4. Using an Exacto knife, make a slit above and below (or on both sides of) the fist. Insert a Dum-Dum or other lollipop through the slits, so it looks like the kid is holding a giant lollipop, and tape the stick in place on the back of the photo.
Here is what we have so far this year (before getting prints and inserting lollipops):
one standard (?) lollipop holder:
one kid who wants to have the dog holding the lollipop in his mouth:
one kid who is just a crumb:
and one kid who wants to have the lollipop going in one ear and out the other:
I’m sure the school misses the old days, when we were new and paranoid and sure that everyone would be judging us, so we tried extra hard to seem like decent people.
Well, dog #2 is home with the Fishers. As I write, Boomer is happy and contented, hasn’t ripped anyone’s throat out, dashed in front of an oncoming truck, or swallowed the dining room whole. He is just placidly trundling around the house, mildly observing the kids as they hurl their bodies at him. He is a one-year-old brindle English Mastiff, and was raised with three little kids and another English Mastiff. His dog pal was older and died, and that’s why he needed a new home: he was just lonely while his people were away all day.
1. He came with an electric fence system, which is wonderful and amazing. These always sounded barbaric to me. I was imagining a paranoid, cringing animal getting zapped constantly; but actually, it’s no big deal. We plugged in the central unit in the hallway near the back door and set the perimeter size. When he wants to go out, we put the special collar on, and off he goes. It buzzes and beeps to warn him that he’s getting too close to the perimeter, so he just goes, “Nope” and turns around. So far, so good! I still get nervous when I see him bounding toward the road, but he stops when he gets to the boundary.
2. His head is e-nor-mous.
It’s just begging for a derby, or possibly — what do you call it, one of those squashy hats that urchins selling newspapers would wear.
3. Probably we wouldn’t have chosen the name “Boomer,” although it does suit his ponderous ways. I just can’t shake the memory of a Florence King essay which featured a lesbian and her large and hearty partner named, you guessed it, Boomer. Oh well, it’ll pass.
4. The kids keep saying in a wondering voice, “He’s not biting me at all!” Although they loved Shane, we just could not break him of mouthing on the kids. He just couldn’t get it through his head that we didn’t want to be chewed on. He thought it was hilarious, even when he drew blood, and it was a constant, serious aggravation for all of us; and honestly, some days, I felt like there was an enemy living in our house. It’s very hard to be good to an animal who is hurting your kids, even if it’s minor and unintentional. So Boomer’s non-bitey ways are a big, big, BIG big big relief. Boomer is older, he’s fixed, and he’s just not a spaz. He doesn’t even try to steal the baby’s food. We got to eat dinner without (a) having our food stolen or (b) hearing whining and screaming and frantic pawing at the door the entire time we were eating. It’s kind of like paradise.
Watching Curious George with his best friends in the whole world (a.k.a. some kids he met less than 24 hours ago)
5. I couldn’t figure out what he reminds me of, but it suddenly hit me: a heraldic lion. Or, a Samurai mask. Or something on a totem pole from the Pacific Northwest. Or, I don’t know what! I guess he just looks like a dog. Benny (age 2) saw him and said, “A bear!” There is something almost stylized about him — maybe because he is so ridiculously muscular, but he doesn’t actually do anything. He will charge around for a while outside and make some noise, but then he wants to come in and sit on his blankie. Yeah, kind of like this:
PIC Ferdinand smelling flowers
He also has these completely gratuitous stripes, where are clearly only there to make him fancy. (Actually, they make him almost invisible in the woods. Very tricky!)
6. The only thing is, he’s spent most of his life on a rural country road,where it was kind of a big deal if a car goes by, and it was totally appropriate to bark your fool head off to warn everybody. We, on the other hand, live on a highway. A rather busy highway. So, you see where this leaves us all. But it’s okay, because we’re not constantly getting bitten. It’s amazing how much grace that buys you.
7. Sorry there aren’t more pictures. Here is another picture of Ferdinand:
PIC
So there you have it! Dog dog dog. Don’t forget to check out everyone else’s 7 Quick Takes – and say a quick prayer for Jennifer, who is sick and not up to writing her own quick takes.
. . . you have about 24 hours.
Oh dear, here is the story. No, we’re not going to have two dogs. Poor dear Shane of happy memory had a glorious but short life with us. Here is what happened: A couple of weeks ago, it was snowing, which always made Shane go completely bonkers with glee. Someone opened the door, he shot past them, got hysterical because of the snow, and ran right out into the road.
It only took one car. He was hit hard. Many broken bones, many internal injuries. They carried him inside and called the vet, but you could see that there was no hope. My husband and older son stayed with him and said good bye and thank you for being a good dog, and they put the poor boy to sleep.
Shane was a good dog. He was not smart. He learned almost nothing beyond the basics. But he loved the kids with all his doggy heart. When he was just a baby, we took him to the beach. One of the kids put Benny in a floating tube. Shane was terrified of water — didn’t even want to get his paws damp — but when he saw what he thought was his baby floating away, in he went. (Of course he ended up tipping her over and getting everyone soaked, but he meant well.) Here is Shane at the beach when he was just little:
and here is Shane having a wonderful day afternoon in a safe spot out in the woods, off the leash:
taking a break from zooming around, and laughing his head off, on the inside:
You see, a happy life. I was not able to tell the kids that dogs just disappear from existence once they die. I just couldn’t do it. I know animals don’t have immortal souls. But they have something. Shane was someone, not something.
It was a hard few weeks, after he died. Once the shock wore off, we talked a little bit about another dog, maybe a smaller one this time. Our house is not big, and we were constantly tripping over Shane. We thought it would be smarter to scale it down, and look for a more sensible kind of breed.
Then this guy turned up:
PIC mastiff in red wagon
This is not the actual dog, but it looks just like him. Here is another dog of the same breed:
PIC mastiff in back seat
The one we met is one year old, a brindle English Mastiff. He grew up with three little kids and another mastiff; but his dog pal died, and now he’s lonely all day. He is like a slow-moving armchair, and lets the kids treat him like a jungle gym. Damien and I went to meet him, and he seemed pretty much like our dog. His paws are the size of candlepin bowling balls, and he will be growing for another two years. I know, I know.
Anyway, here is a bit about his temperament. We will be picking him up — well, not “picking him up,” but getting him, on the day after Christmas. He goes by “Boomer.” He drools and farts and snores, and is completely ready to love you forever, unless you maybe might be going to hurt the family, in which case he will sit on you.
I know, I know.
Warm and stylish!
Almost a thousand of the perfectly preserved documents, scratched on the bark of birch trees, have been recovered from the deep layers of Novgorod’s anaerobic clay soil over the past century… The birch-bark documents date from the 11th to 15th centuries and include tax returns, school exercises, wills, IOUs, marriage proposals, prayers, spells and curses … The most charming, however, are a series of 13th century drawings by a boy named Onfim, who was about 7 years old when he drew them around 1220 AD. Onfim was supposed to be learning to write, but his daydreams got the better of him and his spelling exercises are mixed with doodles. In this example, Onfim has diligently copied out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the corner of the page, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a warrior, sword in one hand and impaling an enemy with a spear in the other – he even labelled the figure on the horse as ‘Onfim’.
PIC Onfim the warrior
In another example, he drew a picture of himself as a wild beast (which he identified by writing “I am a wild beast” over it).
Onfim the Wild Beast would have gotten along just fine with my son Elijah — who, when he was two years old, came down the stairs in the morning growling to himself, “Here – come – wi-ld – Ji-jah . . . ” Here is something Elijah (now 9) recently doodled, apparently while taking a break from making a Christmas wish list:
New technology, same old boys.
Hey, I don’t think it’s immoral to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, or even on Thanksgiving itself. It’s depressing that so many people do it, but Thanksgiving is a secular holiday, so. (Yes, I know that the first Thanksgiving feasts in the New World were to thank God. I just mean that it’s not a feast day or a holy day.) Buying a nice present for someone you care about doesn’t mean you’re some kind of hardened consumerist swine. Some people don’t have lovely family or happy associations with Thanksgiving day, so they’d just as soon be shopping — or working and making time-and-a-half.
That being said, I have never had any desire to shop on Black Friday or on Thanksgiving.
We just have a nice meal on Thanksgiving, and lately have started a new tradition on Friday: we make Jesse Tree ornaments. I know Advent is preparation time, but if we don’t prepare for preparation, nothing gets done. Since we stopped homeschooling, it’s very hard to find time to do family activities; and yet somehow, when we have a day off school for whatever reason, we often end up just lying around playing on the Wii and eating cereal. So, yay, a tradition!
There are any number of Jesse Tree readings and ornament patterns available online. What we do is find one that has a reading for each day, assign a symbol to each one, and then the kids divvy them up. Then I go to the “craft area,” which is a hideous jumble of felt, pom poms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glitter, beads, etc., and just dump everything in the middle of the table . . . and the kids get to it. Big kids make elaborate figurines, little kids make sticky bundles of junk. No judging! Anything goes, as long as you can hang it. The purpose is not to have an artistic finished product, it’s to have a nice time making it together, and to help us move into Advent mode. (And if any Jesse Tree ornaments come out especially nice, they get saved as permanent Christmas ornaments.) Oh, and pro tip: foam meat trays are versatile.
Then we put everything in a box, and when Advent comes, we take turns reading that day’s reading, and whoever made the day’s ornament gets to hang it up. One year, I cut a branch off an evergreen tree and stuck it in a pot full of rocks in the living room. One year, we hung the the ornaments from the ceiling in a line, leading up to where the Christmas tree would be. One year, very short on room, I cut a bare tree branch and bolted that to the wall. It has that gloriously weird, almost-festive Catholic look that unmistakably says, “SOMETHING is going on, but it ain’t Christmas yet!”
What about you? Do you have any traditions for the day after Thanksgiving?
