Daybook for September 29, 2014

Outside my window... cool temps and humidity.  We had rain this morning.  It is damp, but I think I will get the kids outside after rest time is over so they can enjoy the cooler air.  It will be back in the 80s tomorrow, supposedly.

Look!  Jeans and light sweater-type thingies are possible now, because of the cooler weather!  And Lucy can wear her favorite fall outfit (the one that 2 year old Caroline referred to as "my ensemble") that I have been finding her wearing at least three times a week for the past month... finally, she might even be comfortable in it most mornings!

This was outside my window last week... Chris's homemade ham radio antenna fell out of the tree.  See the pine tree behind my hand?  If you look closely you can see the rest of the rope dangling from the tree up there.  We don't know if a squirrel chewed through it or what...

 
I am thinking...  how Cecilia is learning her father's sense of humor.  Those of you familiar with Kerrygold butter may get this joke.  We had recently also had packages of the salted variety, and the one she is holding here is the unsalted.  She picked it up and said, "Hmm, shouldn't this kind be called Kerrysilver butter?"

   
I am wondering... why Lucy gets colds so easily... she has the first one of the season already.  Warning - discussion of childbirth ahead, for those who don't like to read about that (I know you exist, even if I don't understand, ha ha)... Here's my possible theory... based on what I know of childbirth, the baby gets colonized with the mother's bacteria as it passes through the birth canal.  Since Lucy was still enclosed in the membrane as she passed through, I am assuming she had less contact - or no contact - with any of that.  Here is just one example of an article about how c-section babies miss out on these microbes.  So could it be that a baby whose face (and Lucy's whole body was encased still!) is covered by the membrane also misses out on these beneficial microbes?  I want a study on this!  Then again, I am going to guess that babies born "in the caul" used to be far more common... many OB/GYNs and even more naturally-minded midwives will sometimes prematurely rupture the membranes on purpose.  Eating lots of protein during pregnancy is said to create stronger membranes, and I have experienced that myself.  I tried to eat at least 80 grams of protein a day while pregnant, and my membranes did not break until I was pushing hard with the first birth, and then not at all with the third birth.  Keeping the membranes intact as long as possible makes for a smoother birth because the contractions are less painful - you still have that cushion of fluid.  So, all that leaves me wondering... which is better?  And could Lucy have benefited from being colonized?  Of course, she has also been getting all the good bacteria and living enzymes in breastmilk for three years now, so I know that is helpful.  Her colds are always very mild... she just always seems to have a runny or stuffy nose every few weeks unless it is summer.

I am praying... for this family.  Such a beautiful story, such a positive example of the beauty and value of every human life.  They need prayers as their daughter is moving towards the end of her life.

I am thankful...  that I have a handy husband.  He can fix so many things... like our refrigerator/freezer.  It has been having issues and he has been able to fix them all.  Plus car issues he has recently fixed, and the blender, and several other things.  Good for money-saving! 

He was doing work on this computer for somebody last week... so it was sitting here by the door for him to take with him to get it back to the owner.  Lucy came up to it and said, "Mommy, what is it?"  I asked her to guess, and she said, "I don't know!!  It's Daddy's."  Cecilia guessed it was a printer.  Then she said, "It's a computer case."  As in, a case in which to carry a computer.  When I told her it was itself a computer, she said, "Where does it open?"  She was thinking laptop.  I had to explain that it has a separate screen and keyboard that are not attached to it.  I guess these things are rapidly becoming dinosaurs...

I am hearing... Lucy moving around in her room over the monitor... she is having rest time in her room, and I am just hoping when I go get her in a moment that she will not have emptied out every drawer of Cecilia's side the dresser again...

***She was wearing a pair of leggings and a long-sleeved shirt under her short-sleeved pajamas, but those were the only things she had taken out of the dresser.  Yay!  She loves to dress up!***

Learning at home... we are studying birds in-depth this year and have been reading through the Burgess Bird Book for Children, which we all love (free version online here!).  I have saved some old milk jugs to make into a few bird feeders to place around the backyard, hoping to attract more of whatever birds may be migrating through the are this fall, so we will probably get those made and hung up this afternoon.  This weekend, Cecilia and I noticed two birds we had never seen before, but by the time we got the camera, they were gone, and we were unable to find them in a bird guide.  We thought they looked like woodpeckers, but one had yellow on its breast (but no red head), and the other had red on its breast (again, no red head), so maybe they were females, or juveniles?  No woodpeckers in our field guide looked like either one.  Maybe I will do an in-depth post about our bird studies this year at some point... 

From the kitchen... made kale chips yesterday, and some of this coconut flour pumpkin bread.  I told Cecilia we'd make peanut butter balls since we are learning about Georgia and which of her relatives were born/lived here... but I might not have all the ingredients right now.  This weekend, we had this chicken enchilada soup, except I made it by using the broth that was made in the crock pot from this recipe and the extra shredded chicken from it as well... both were winners, and a great way to use one whole chicken to make two meals, including the broth for the soup.  Yum.  The soup was great topped with sour cream and guacamole.  

I am obsessed with grilled eggplant.  This was our dinner last week - very Italian.

I am reading... Sweet Sleep, the latest book published by La Leche League.  I bought a copy for our Group library and am pre-reading it before sticking it in there for the moms to check out.  I have also been reading the Couple To Couple League magazine, Family Foundations, that came in the mail several weeks ago.  And I have a stack of books I need to skim through that I got for Caroline... she will be ten in March, so that means we have to start having certain talks soon.  There are a few Catholic resources on these "growing up" topics: Wonderfully Made - Babies, All Things Girl, and The Joyful Mysteries of Life.  I also got a copy of the American Girl book The Care and Keeping of You, and will look through it as well, in trying to decide what to read with her and when.  And I have also been reading through Tea and Cake with the Saints, which is such a sweet, fun little book - a generous friend sent it to us a few weeks ago!  It had been on my wish list for the girls for awhile, and it is even better than I had hoped!

To live the liturgical year... today is the feast of the archangels, so we are having angel hair pasta for dinner, along with carrots (because St. Rafael is the patron of eyesight, and carrots are supposedly good for vision), and a chicken and apple dish.  Later in the week are St. Jerome, St. Therese, and St. Francis's feast days, as well as the Guardian Angels - Lucy was baptized on that day, so I am going to make angel food cake with whipped cream for her baptismal anniversary.  St. Jerome's symbol is a lion - so we are going to make pita pizzas for lunch tomorrow to look like lion faces and read St. Jerome and the Lion, which we reserved from the library.  And we will have Swiss cider fondue for dinner on St. Therese's feast day... isn't fondue French?  It sounds French.  Boom - feast day incorporation.  I want to also do meat fondue... where you put the raw beef into the boiling broth to cook it.  I need to figure out which cut of beef is best... I have a rib steak and a loin tip roast.  Not sure which to use...

One of my favorite things... hmm... coffee.  Now that Lucy is three, and not a baby at all anymore, the possibility of another baby is on my mind, and so I have thought about how I would want to decrease my caffeine consumption if I am pregnant again.  And apparently my emotional response has been to drink MORE coffee than usual, and black tea, to get it while I can!  Oh, and more beer, too.  I guess I will end up going cold turkey if I become pregnant again.  For now, I am thoroughly enjoying it all.

I am creating... I need to be creating a few checklists... I need to pick some poems for Caroline to learn this year and make a list of them and a checklist for her to keep track of them.  I tried letting her choose her own this year, and she picked three and then asked me to pick the rest for her.  We use Favorites Poems Old and New and The Harp and the Laurel Wreath to choose most of their poetry work... both have a wide selection of classic poems.  They have also learned poems from The Child on His Knees and When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne.

Around the house... almost time to put away summer clothes and get out fall things.  I hate doing that - and now I don't have an extra bedroom to stash the winter clothes boxes while we are in transition and the weather is still fluctuating.  I will have to get out about four fall/winter outfits per child and then switch everything else once cold weather is here to stay.


Pondering these words... "Even when children go to schools taught by qualified persons, some insight on the part of fathers and mothers is useful as hindering the teacher from dropping into professional grooves, valuing proficiency in this or that subject for its own sake, and not as it affects the children." - Charlotte Mason

A few plans for the rest of the week... 
* No PSR at church on Wednesday - fall break.
* Dance class on Thursday.
* Celebrate Lucy's baptismal anniversary on Thursday with angel food cake and the relighting of her baptismal candle.
* Noon Mass followed by lunch and October Homeschool Group at our church.
* Moms' Night Out on Friday evening - going to meet at a restaurant for drinks and maybe snacks/desserts with a few other Catholic homeschooling moms from our group!
* Mountain Day at Berry - BBQ lunch on Mountain Campus and then Marthapalooza Faculty/Staff Family Hour... they didn't do this when I was a student, boo.  I would have LOVED it... they bring in carnival rides and open them up for students from 10-2am... and they have funnel cakes and that kind of junk, and games, and one year Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell made a guest appearance (weird, right??)... anyway, for $5 each, we can go for an hour in the afternoon, since Chris works on campus.  Anyway, Mountain Day is Berry's big thing every fall, and it really isn't as exciting as it sounds (my friends and I actually skipped it most years because we were antisocial, ha), and this year is the 100th Mountain Day... so, that is pretty cool, so we figure we should go to part of it, anyway, seeing as we still live nearby. 

A picture thought I am sharing...

I still haven't put photos from our beach trip on the blog... only on Facebook.  I hope to get a post done one day with them... this was way back at the beginning of August!