To Baby Lucy

Sweet Baby Lucy,

I feel you moving inside me. You squirm and push, and I wonder... is that a foot? Is it your tiny rear end poking into my ribs? Or could it be your arm? Are you head down now? At 36 weeks, I am sure it is getting tighter in there, and you have less room to kick but plenty of room for squirming. I can see your movements... you are getting so big! One night last week, your daddy fell asleep to the feeling of your squirming against his arm.

How blessed I am to feel you moving! It is the most special feeling in the world of which I know. Of any feeling experienced, this one is the most amazing. And it is fleeting... one day soon, I will be empty inside and no longer feeling your movements. Then, I will be feeling and seeing them on the outside, also amazing to behold. But there is something very different and sacred about the feeling of movement from the inside: I'm the only person in the world who will ever feel your movements in this way. Think about how amazing that is! And each push, shift, twitch, and jab makes me smile contentedly at the reminder of your presence within me.

I know you have to come out. And of course, I am eager to hold you in my arms! Still, there will be a bit of sadness as I miss the feeling of life within me. Will I ever feel it again? No mother can ever be totally sure if she will get to experience the miracle of life in this way again... it is up to God. Being in this season of life, the child-bearing years, I want to savor and embrace these movements, knowing that they will be gone from me far too quickly.

Sweet baby, enjoy your time here inside me. Enjoy the undisturbed space, the safety and security of being in such a controlled environment. You have warmth, you have food, you have what you need to finish growing, all regulated in a controlled way. Do you feel the occasional tightening, readying you for birth? Do you sense that something is going to change soon? If you could rationalize, would you want to leave that safe space at all? I can assure you that although the world is not as peaceful on the outside, I will do what I can for you to make your transition here as smooth as possible. I will do my best to give you warmth, food, comfort, love. Life will be different once you are no longer within me, but not terribly so. I will give you my presence and physical contact as long as you need it, and, although you wouldn't believe it now, one day you won't feel the need to be touching me constantly. You will grow so quickly! I want to feel your presence against me and savor it rather than wish it away. These feelings of your movement from within are only the beginning, and that knowledge will make it beautiful for me to have you here in my arms rather than in my womb.

Is it silly for me to wish I could always feel a baby's presence, moving inside me? Maybe so. But it is a feeling that brings such joy and contentedness. What a privilege and a blessing to be able to take part in the miracle of life in this way!

First Grade So Far

We have started off our school year well here and are now in the third week! We hope to finish the fourth week before taking a little vacation to Tennessee next week.

Here are some of the things we are doing this year... in random order...

Once a week, we are reading one of the fables in our Aesop's Fables book. I read it aloud, and then Caroline narrates, or retells, the story to me while I type it. Then I print it, and she puts it into her fables book and illustrates it.

Here are two she has done so far: The Young Crab and his Mother and The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox. If you click on it to see the larger image, you might be able to read it...

We are also doing the same thing with Old Testament stories. I am reading one per week from a Catholic children's Bible, and Caroline retells it as I write it in her book. Then she works on copywork: a verse from the Bible story that is important or sums up the story well. This is glued into her book and she adds an illustration. So there are three components here: her narration, the Bible verse, and the drawing.

Here is her first page, The Story of Creation.

This is her page on Adam and Eve in Paradise. Again, I think you may be able to read them if you click the pictures to see them larger. Caroline really goes into detail in her Bible story narrations! She has far less detail when retelling an event that happened to her or explaining something we did as a science project or a trip we took. She narrates stories very accurately.

Here is Caroline's science book... we have titled it Rivers, Lakes, and Oceans. We are studying bodies of water and water in general this year. We took a trip to a nearby lake and observed the plants and animals there, and then Caroline made a scrapbook-style page of our visit:

She narrated the trip to me as I typed, and it is pasted into the book at the top. Then she put the photos in and wrote notes about them and what we saw at the lake. We plan to choose one water area to make several trips to over the year so we can observe changes in wildlife and plants as the seasons change.

This is Caroline's Liturgical Year Notebook. I showed it before in the post about our plans for first grade. Under the "saints" tab, we have added some copywork from a story we read about St. Christopher. Caroline also colored a picture of him (from Fenestrae Fidei) and narrated the story to me as I typed (and it is almost a whole page single-spaced, so I didn't take a photo of it)... it is on the front of the page with the story quote. Every week or two, we will read a different story that corresponds with the liturgical year, and we will add copywork and projects to this notebook. This is an ongoing project that will cover a few years, most likely.

For math, we have been using Math U See and so far, Caroline really likes it, and she understands the concepts very well. We made a poster of "decimal street" to practice learning place value and regrouping.

This is our timeline... only one event card up there when I took this photo, but now we have four, including one before this one which shows the universe and earth being created billions of years ago. It is a long piece of yarn across the top of the wall in our schoolroom, and as w read about each event or person, we add the picture to the timeline. It is a very basic introduction to history and gives an overview of where to place certain events in time. We also read a good children's book or three about each event if we have them available through our library. I envision taking the cards down and mixing them up at some points throughout the year and having Caroline re-order them.

And back to the Liturgical Year Notebook... I said this was in random order... Caroline painted a St. Benedict's Cross after we read The Holy Twins in July (which is when his feast day falls). She also copied a quote from the story, and we made these into a page for her notebook.

Here's a look at some Circle Time stuff... Caroline puts the date on the magnetic calendar and any saint magnets for the day, then she writes the date on the whiteboard easel. She also writes the time of the day and counts coins and writes that on the board as well. On this day, she counted two amounts and wrote them both, and then I gave her the directions to circle the amount that was less and draw a box around the greater amount. Under that are a few letters for Cecilia to name. Then there is a word given, and Caroline reads it, decides what the vowel pattern is, and writes as many other words as she can in the same word family. I have also put sentences on the board for very basic editing practice... they are missing beginning capitalization, or capitalization of proper names of people, and they are missing ending punctuation. I have also done some where she circles the correct verb use in a particular sentence. Also in Circle Time, we sing a different hymn each month (August is Hail, Holy Queen) and read a couple of poems daily from A Child's Garden of Verses and The Child on his Knees.

And back to water, and science... we did a puddle experiment this week. We poured water out to make a puddle in the shade and a puddle in direct sunlight. Then Caroline traced around the puddles and we observed them every 5-10 minutes to see what happened. She is going to make a page in her book with pictures and her retelling of what we did and saw.

This is something we will do here and there throughout the year called the Nature Logbook... the page was created by our homeschooling neighbors. We looked up information on mallard ducks since we saw them at the lake, and we filled out a page. Our notebook has sections for insects, mammals, birds, plants, and...

chickens! Yes, technically they should go in the "bird" section, but I figured we'd have many chances to observe them and gather information about them... experiment on them and such (kidding! ;). We are currently tracking their daily egg-laying with a bar graph. That blank day was one where we forgot to record the number of eggs... luckily, we have not had any one-egg or no-egg days! They are not at top-laying capacity right now, but they are still producing pretty well for this heat wave, I think! We finished this graph today and so I need to print out a new one for the next few weeks!

And on to social studies...
In addition to the basic timeline, we are doing something called Family Geography. So far, we have filled out a family tree going back to Caroline's great-grandparents and glued it into her book. Then we plotted where each person was born on a map for her book...

...and we also put stickers on the wall map to show everyone's birthplace. Next, we will look at old family photos showing the areas in which people were born or lived later in life, and we'll learn more about those places... things like climate, land features, location. We'll also try to include some regional recipes and fun stuff like that!

That is basically what we are doing for first grade... we do one Bible story a week, one fable a week, one timeline event a week, one day of family geography, one day of water study (as well as nature study at water environments)... math is daily, and copywork from the Bible verses and liturgical year stories is almost daily. We also do five minutes of the St. Joseph's First Communion catechism daily and will add in seasonal and liturgical year crafts here and there. So far, so good! I am feeling good about getting several weeks knocked out before the baby is born!

Wordless Wednesday - Panting Chickens

The Feast of St. Anne

Caroline's "nameday" saint, St. Anne, mother of Mary, calls for a special celebration... we celebrated this way last year as well, so I think it is becoming a tradition! St. Anne is typically pictured wearing red and green, and her feast day falls in the summer, so we have watermelon-themed refreshments!

Caroline helped me roll the cookies in frosting to make the green rind. And, while I hate to admit it, fancy all-natural food coloring just kinda stinks. I actually had to add a little of the nasty fake red stuff to make the cookies turn slightly pinkish! Maybe because it was whole wheat flour, thus already brown... regardless, the raw dough looked like raw hamburger meat. Sorry if anyone was trying to eat while reading that just now...

Anyway, they tasted great! I can't find the link and am too lazy to get up and find the paper onto which I printed the recipe, but they had honey in them instead of sugar. We also had our watermelon "smoothies," as the girls call them, which is watermelon lemonade with mint... refreshing in this heat!

Caroline also got a new St. Anne holy card, as usual. Next year, I think she will get a St. Anne medal and a chain to wear it on... shh, don't tell her! ;)

Reasons I Love Homeschooling

The Flowers

by Robert Louis Stevenson

All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener's garters, shepherd's purse,

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

and the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames -

These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Tiny fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where, if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.

Each month, we are reading a poem from A Child's Garden of Verses. We read it daily, and by the end of the month, Caroline has it memorized. The Flowers was July's poem. When Caroline and Cecilia were playing outside yesterday, they took out their little toy fairies and ponies. I overheard Caroline reciting the poem as they played with the toys in the garden. Forming a relationship with the poetry, living what she is learning as it is woven into daily life... this is a truly living education and one of the reasons to love learning at home!

Random Bits

So I guess it is time to be really concerned about the educational institutions in this area when my six year old is correcting signs posted in public bathrooms: "Employee's must wash hands," one said. Caroline asked me, pointing to the apostrophe, "Why is that there? They don't need it there, because the employee isn't owning anything." I told her that I didn't understand it, but it seems that many people think words ending in vowels have to have apostrophes when you are talking about more than one of them. Growing up with a last name ending with the letter i made this very apparent to me... and now that my last name begins with s, it is just as bad, but in a different way. I am destined for last name errors forever, ha ha.

You know, when I go to the gym, I just swim laps in the pool. I don't "work out" on the machines. So maybe I am clueless on this, but it seems like there is certain music that does not really lend itself to being work-out music. A while back I heard "Hotel California" as I walked past the exercise machines and thought, "Hmm, that'd be interesting to run the treadmill to, I suppose..." Today, I heard "Rooster" by Alice in Chains... can anyone actually, physically manage to work out to that song? It'd be like working out to Smashing Pumpkins, or Nirvana... or something really slow and peaceful, like James Taylor. I don't think it would be physically possible! Maybe Richard Simmons can do a "Sweatin' to the Depressing Alternative Music" video and prove me wrong...

Caroline was playing with our painted saints and was making them study their specific fields... she had the priests studying "priestogy," the nuns studying "nunnogy," and the mothers studying "mommogy." "You know, it's like geography, Mommy!" she said.

So I am getting to that point in pregnancy where everybody feels the need to comment on my size... I get the, "When are you due?" and "Getting close, now, huh?" comments now. I like to watch the somewhat horrified expression on the asker's face when I respond with a smile and, "Six more weeks!" Apparently they don't think six weeks is "getting close" at all! And, well, neither do I, really... sure, it feels like I must have more than one baby in there, but anyone who comments with, "Are you sure you're not having twins?" is just rude. Haven't gotten that comment yet this time...

I notice the baby image on my pregnancy ticker is now head-down. I think this little one is, too... she had hiccups for the first time, and they were down pretty low. My others had hiccups non-stop. This one has had them twice that I have noticed. Maybe that's good? I don't know...

I am making fig-filled granola bars as I type... okay, I am not really that good at multi-tasking; I already made them and they are in the oven. Our fig tree is going nuts, so I took some figs to a friend (several friends now, actually!), and she came up with this recipe based on a fruit-filled granola bar recipe. Smells great, and I hope it turns out well for me!

Speaking of baking, I am having a slight bit of nesting instinct, wanting to bake more and such, but I am also physically not too comfortable with back pain and sore feet, especially by the end of the day. My mom was going to buy me some really nice, comfortable, cushioned shoes... she has a SAS store right down the street from her house and bought herself some before she did a bunch of walking on a recent trip to Italy. Well, we got there, and they were closed. Boo. Sore feet to continue for me. I wore her pair all day at a conference last weekend, and I could definitely tell the difference. Then again, buying shoes during pregnancy may ensure that they are too big postpartum... aren't you not supposed to do that, like you're not supposed to get eye exams during pregnancy???

Maybe I have mentioned this before... Cecilia has nicknamed the baby "lump baby." Yes, she has a real name.. well, uh, almost, that is...

Anyway, on the slight nesting... I have a few lists I really need to tackle, too. I have a "before baby comes" list, a homeschool to-do list, a pack for the hospital list (that one's still in my head and not on paper)... and then the around-the-house stuff I'd like to get done (or The List Formerly Known as Spring Cleaning... oops).

Random Bits

Does anybody else thin the new Ford Flex cars look like hearses? No offense if you own one; they look spacious and comfy, and I have a thing for station wagon-style cars... but they look like space-age hearses to me.

I was shopping for a maternity sundress a few weeks ago and found a great one for a great deal using a Groupon from Old Navy... I wanted something to just wear casually in this heat as I go through the final trimester of pregnancy! So once I bought it, I realized I needed a bra that would work with it - strapless or thinner straps or something along those lines. Luckily, I was right next to a Kohl's. Actually, I thought I was around the corner from a Kohl's so I drove around the building in the same large parking lot to go in... but when I left, I somehow came out right next to Old Navy. Apparently they have two entrances, and I chose the less convenient one, ha ha! Anyway, if you have ever shopped in the underwear/bra department in Kohl's, you may have noticed its square footage is larger than my whole house. Endless rows of bras. If you are male and still reading this, please feel free to skip past if you have little interest in bra-shopping. ;) What I noticed as I walked up and down the aisles is that 90some% of the bras were padded... not just a little bit, but the padding that makes the cups stick way out, perfectly rounded, so as you have to be careful when walking down the aisles lest you get too close and knock them off the racks as they protrude into your path. Apparently I am in the minority here on not liking these kinds of bras... I guess I don't like that they are too thick, too bulky-feeling, too much fabric (meaning too hot). I typically want a bra that I don't notice I am wearing a few minutes after I put it on. And, thankfully, I finally came across something new: bandini bras. They were made by a brand called Barely There. Yes, that sounded right up my alley - I want a bra that is barely there. If I could go without all the time, I probably would, so this is the next best thing in my opinion. They are also made in easy sizes: small, medium, large. And they came in a set of two! The straps can be up over the shoulders or pulled down to make it a strapless bra. You can even have one strap up and one strap down, although I can't see much practicality in that. So, I just thought I would review this product here in case there are any other people out there who like this kind of bra!

Cecilia went swimming and talked about rinsing off the "cholrine." Hee hee. She doesn't say "scrunscreen" any more... I think that was last summer.

We were given a huge load of girls' clothes by a neighbor who has two nieces who have outgrown the clothing... and wow, is it a lot of stuff! After sorting through and putting aside the almost half of it that is too small or otherwise not usable, there is still enough to fill almost three large loads in the washing machine! I am washing it and then will need to sort through and put it into boxes by this winter, next summer, next winter, and next summer! Looks like I won't need to do any big consignment sale shopping this fall, which is good, seeing as I might not really feel up to it in the last weeks of pregnancy or with a newborn!

School is off to a good start here, and we'll do our second day tomorrow. Next week we will do three days between dentist appointments and La Leche League, and then the girls and I head to Atlanta for a Leader Development Seminar for LLL. They can hang out with my parents while I go to all the technical classes and learn what I can. So, another busy week next week, and then maybe - hopefully - things will start to slow down into a better routine... for a little while, anyway.

We are doing some of the Holy Heroes summer adventure stuff... it is like an at-home Vacation Bible School program. Caroline really enjoyed VBS with our parish a couple weeks ago.

I was noticing that there are tons of old photos on my phone that I hadn't moved to my computer... so, I finally moved some of them and thought I'd share some in an edition of Random Bits - Random Sightings:

First we have a photo from our downtown fountains, which I have mentioned before as being extremely cool for a relatively small town. I need to take my real camera there to get some actual good photos sometime... but this one gives an idea of how the three "rivers" work: there is a shallow pool at the top of the photo, and the water flows out of it (between Cecilia's legs in this photo!) and down toward the bottom of the picture into a shallower pool... and then there are fountains beyond that, which lead down to a huge fountain in the middle.

Here is what Cecilia does while Caroline is at her occupational therapy sessions... she really enjoys the time to just sit and draw, or read, or play with whatever else we bring in to the waiting room. I have found that the front room is almost always less crowded and more pleasant, with more appropriate conversations going on! I love to watch her draw, though... she likes to color in all the space. In fact, I was coloring something in to use for school, and she pointed out to me the pinprick-sized spots where I hadn't filled it in all the way! ;-P

So, I think this was at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis... maybe? Like I said, some of these photos were taken months ago. Anyway, I guess this means that children under age 9 can go in alone?

One of our chickens caught this in the backyard... it is the third snake they have caught this spring/summer. Yuck! They go crazy when one catches a snake, all chasing each other and trying to be the one who gets it! Anyone know what kind it is?

Okay, so I saw this in the cake decorating area in a store... multicultural fondant. Why would somebody decorate a cake like this???? As a side note, I think fondant tastes gross. I know you don't have to eat it, but why ruin a perfectly good opportunity for lots of yummy frosting by putting this stuff on instead?

Hmm, maybe it's cinnamon rolls, or it could be something totally different... say, human waste smells, seeing as this sign was posted inside the bathroom! What were they thinking?????

As another side note, every time I walk into the locker room and bathroom in the gym where I go to swim laps, I think, "Mmm, it smells like Big Red gum!" Then I immediately think, "It should not smell like something edible in a public bathroom..." I think it is the air freshener that has that cinnamon smell.

And speaking of bathrooms, last photo... don't remember which bathroom this was; I visit them all often these days. ;) Maybe it was Wal-Mart... but I just wondered, if soap is in the left side, what is that in the right side?

Caroline's First Day of First Grade!

Yes, we have started school again! Caroline told me, "Mommy, I'm glad we're doing school again!" :)

We have begun school this early so we can get a head start before Baby 3 is born in September. It will be a slow start, as we have several things happening here and there, especially things like OB appointments for me, every two weeks now! So, we began our day with Circle Time - new and improved since Kindergarten. We will learn new monthly hymns and do various money counting/comparing/exchanging, review and learn more counting patterns, and do a bit of language arts work on the easel each day. We'll continue doing calendar and saints of the day, along with some songs and rhymes for Cecilia.

Here is the official first day of school photo... we were all wearing white shirts today, and you will soon find out why if you keep reading this post!

New colored pencils for the first day of school... I debated ordering some really nice ones online... it is easy to want to do that when you see or hear about really nice art materials online... but practicality needs to win out more often. I think I'd rather have babies than expensive school supplies. :) So I got a pack of 50 Crayola colored pencils at Wal-Mart... they all just barely fit in this jar (which formerly held Trader Joe's almond butter).

Here is something else I have added to Circle Time this year: the pledge. I found this poster in my old school stuff - who knows where I got it; I used to teach 3rd and 4th graders and would have insulted their intelligence by posting this in my classroom!

For Cecilia, I am also doing this activity to teach about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and how we are like His sheep. I got this here from Catholic Icing and printed it off and assembled it... we will go through the Bible story once a week and Cecilia can re-enact it herself as well.

I gave Caroline an elementary spelling inventory since I have never assessed her spelling before. I thought it would be helpful to have and do one maybe each year for comparison. It is really interesting to see how the spelling patterns evolve...

Here is our schedule for this year... still somewhat tentative, but I think I like it mostly the way it is. We will try it out this way for awhile and see how it goes! You can see it larger by clicking on it.

Here's an ongoing project... we will add to it over the years. It is a liturgical year binder with several tabs... we can put projects, copywork, coloring sheets, narrations of saint stories, etc. in here. I got the idea from Catholic Mosaic - we will be reading several of the books on their booklist this year, I hope.

Here are the shelves in the schoolroom... the top shelf holds some of the books we will be using. The shelves below are the "work activity" shelves. Last year, I put an assortment of activities for the girls to choose from as a transition between breakfast and beginning the school day. That didn't seem to work out so well over the long haul, so I am trying something new this time: work trays. There will be just one or two items on each tray, changed each day. This way, there is no confusion over what is to be done! Caroline will also have her journal on her work tray twice a week along with a monthly list of topics from which to write about. Cecilia's tray is still optional at this point... she can use it if she is feeling like being included in "school," or she can do her own thing... either way, this is how I get the dishes done after breakfast each morning! I am also going to get her doing more water play and "helping" wash the dishes with me this year, I think.

Here's our new file crate, with a hanging file for each week. I have filed the Old Testament copywork verses for each week in here, along with the First Timeline images for each week. I also have a file for each month, and there are liturgical year coloring sheets, projects, and copywork from saint books filed there. Looking back, I think it might be overkill this year to have a file for each week... I had a file for each letter last year, which worked well. As more work is added (and more kids are "enrolled" in Hycliff Academy!), this will probably be a good system... not sure yet if I will be keeping each year's crate and then pulling them out in future years or combining all the kids' stuff into one crate for each year...

Here are most of our books for frequent use: my planning binder and the liturgical year binder, Caroline's math workbook, The Earth, our children's Bible, the First Timeline book, the First Communion Catechism, and Angel Food for Boys and Girls Volume 1, to be used alongside the catechism using this handy chart from Wildflowers and Marbles.

I found this Old Testament timeline to go along with our Old Testament studies... we will read a story from the children's Bible each week, and then Caroline will retell it and illustrate it. I also found this laminated map in my old school posters... we will use it for our family geography studies in which we will learn about the places where Caroline's grandparents and great-grandparents were born and grew up... this will be part of our social studies curriculum, along with the timeline.

Here's Caroline writing in her journal... her first entry ever was on the topic of the first day of school.

Here's Caroline illustrating the cover of her Old Testament book... she chose to draw Noah's ark on the front since she is already familiar with that Old Testament story.

Here's the finished cover. I love these books... they are blank with about 20 pages in each, and you can get them lined or unlined and in various sizes. I got them from Emmanuel Books.

And the first day of school happily coincided with Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A! For those who might be unfamiliar, I like to call this "Dress like a cow, get free food day." If you go in a complete cow costume, you get your whole meal free... chicken, fries, drink, and if you are lucky enough to have a Dwarf House Chick-fil-A, then you can sit down on the wait side and get a free salad, too! So the girls and I had made headbands with ears and a bunch of spots the day before, and I made each of us a tail by braiding yarn together. We also made "Eat Mor Chikin" signs like the cows wear.

Cecilia the cow

Caroline the cow, with a small cow... I think that one is "Cowie"

And they got to say hi to the big cow!! He came by our table a couple times and batted at the girls' balloons, shook their "hooves," and cradled their stuffed cows like babies. Cecilia used to be unsure of the big cow... when she first met him, she was about one and was a little disturbed... the thing is BIG! Today, she decided on the way home that she wanted to pretend to be the big cow... so I told her, "The big cow doesn't ever talk, does he? All he does is wave." So Cecilia then acknowledged everything anyone said to her by simply waving, which Caroline thought was hilarious. It was a fun way to end our first day of school!

I guess this post covered a lot of our curriculum for the year as well... any other families want to share what you are using for homeschooling this year? I got a lot of our ideas here from Mater Amabilis - they have each year's curriculum listed on their website.