More Pictures from the Visit

Did I mention my Mom was the one driving Fr. Pinto around on this side of the country? (We loved having time with you too, Mom!) Here she is holding our parakeets, Joy and Peace.

That's Joy on Fr. Pinto's head.

And here is Klenda curled up and listening to stories.

And Oob, of course. Oob really really bonded with Fr. Pinto! This is a good thing because he is Fr. Pinto's namesake! On the other hand, when Father left, Oob cried and cried. He's back to happy general destruction now, however. It's amazing how much you can get into when you can haul around the chairs!

RIP Fr. Pinto

Yesterday Angel called with the shocking news that my dear friend, Fr. Pinto, had been killed in a car accident in India.

Please pray for the repose of his soul, and for his family, as well as for all the people whose lives he touched.  For myself, all I can say is that my life is so much better for having known him.  He brought me closer to God, and may the Lord he loved so well, richly reward him.

He taught me that nothing is lost in God, and to trust, always trust in God's love for us, even, perhaps especially, in the face of great suffering..

The Balancing Act

We're back (kinda)!

The portfolio review went swimmingly.  I love having that chance to review how each kid is doing,and it's really revved me up to do more great stuff this semester. 

I kind of had a hard time pulling things together this time, partly because of outside forces, partly because I did not do a good job of blogging all the great stuff the Zoomlians are doing. 

About those "outside forces."  My much beloved mother in law went to the hospital for an asthma attack in early January and discovered the problem was really her heart.  She's out of the hospital now, awaiting surgery.  My dear father in law and amazing sister in law are doing the lion's share of care, but I am going over as often as I can to help out and have a little "mom time."

It's a balancing act.  She has been there for me throughout the last 25 years, and I want so much to be there for her.  The Zoomlians have risen to the occasion heroically, and they are all old enough to be left on their own.  But.

This is the tricky bit: they need me there too.  The smallest part of it is practical. Part of it is educational (although things do seem to just keep going), and part of it is emotional.  When I'm with them, I can see when conflicts and problems are starting, and I usually diffuse them (these kids just need more space), or point them out so the kids can diffuse them (when you say this, what is he hearing?), depending on the age and needs of the kid.  When I'm not there, things can build. 

This too is a learning experience for the kids, and I can see that God is using it.  I just need to discern how God wants me to balance my time. My weekly hour of Adoration has become essential: I need to talk about how things are going and get instructions for the next week.  My friend, Fr. Pinto, used to talk about that, but I am really feeling it now!

And the Lord is arranging things, too.  We didn't have enough teens to do the co-op this semester. We'll continue our Adventurers field trips, but those don't require the level of work of the co-op.

Photo: Ilya Zomb's The Art of Balance from his series The Metamorphoses of Stillness

Zorg's Graduation!

 Tis the season for graduations!

Zorg graduated high school, choosing the school name: St. Ann's Academy, in honor of our dear friend, Fr. Santan Pinto (his first name means Saint Ann).









 He will continue on with PGCC as a full time student to get his AA, then he's hoping to transfer to Catholic University to fill out a four year degree in Philosophy.


 It was a lovely time with family and friends to celebrate all of his hard work!

And we are, in a sense, half way through our home school!

Guest Post: Mxyl & Klenda

Hi there, all you cute little earthlings! Mxyl and Klenda here. We're sorry that our mom hasn't been
blogging for a while because we were VERY busy with painting our rooms! Mom's already blogged about Klenda's, but I (Mxyl) painted my room silver to look like the inside of a spaceship! Mom's had Zorg and I paint control boards!

Then, Fr. Santan Pinto, S.O.L.T., came over for a long weekend, but we didn't have enough time to add a blog then, either. He's written a lot of religious books.

She'll blog again soon!

The Best Reason to be Busy!

We had a fantastic visit with our dearly loved Fr. Pinto!

He told us wonderful stories (if you ever thought holiness was boring, now there is a man with an interesting life!).

He showed us how to cook chapatis!

He said Mass for us and consecrated our chalice!

We watched Ostrov!

We went to DC and did the Natural History Museum (my personal favorite and the one that always seems to lose out to Air and Space with house guests)!

He gave talks on finding your personal path to holiness!

Mostly we just enjoyed sitting and talking over many many cups of tea...

He is very encouraging and very loving and patient with kids (and adults!). I know many more people that like kids in the abstract than really enjoy being with them (especially a lot of them) and he falls into that rare second category.

The only down side was that when he left the kids dissolved into a flood of tears... But we are feeling better and hope he comes back soon!!

Crazy Advent

One of the joys of using Playmobil Nativity people is that they are of the right size to interact with other toys.  The creature hiding behind the stable keeps showing up in our nativity...

This week my Advent has kind of felt like there was a giant alien bug hiding behind all the Christmas preparations.

Last week I went in for some minor dental work and got walloped with "the tooth from heck" as my dentist so delicately put it.  By the end of that encounter I had laser gum surgery, a shaved bone, and air in my cheek (not in my mouth, inside my cheek). 

I was an airhead for a few days, but I'm feeling muuuuch better now.  Except that today I had to go back in with a raging gum infection.  I'm glad I live in the time of antibiotics.

Back to last Friday: I was hardly off the pain killers when I got the news that Fr. Pinto had died.  Later that day, my father-in-law went into the hospital with a fever they couldn't control.  The fever broke today, thanks be to God, but prayers for his recovery would be appreciated.

What to make of all this in Advent? 

A parish near me uses blue for Advent instead of purple and pink.  Klenda asked the priest on Gaudete Sunday, why no pink?  He told her that the pink was there to offset the penitential purple, but that Advent wasn't really a penitential time, so they just use blue and therefore don't need the pink..

That's wrong, of course.  The Church has spoken on that one: we use purple because it's a penitential season.  Pink represents joy.  So, he's right about something very basic to the spiritual life: when you skip the penance, you lose the joy.

What does that have to do with my aching gums and battered heart?  Two things.  The first was that when I went in to get that minor dental work done, I was thinking of Annabelle's sister Julie. 

Annabelle comments pretty frequently on my blog, and she happened to mention that she was having a tough Advent because her sister was diagnosed with cancer.   I looked her up on Caring Bridge, and saw that Julie has a cancer that is difficult if not impossible to cure, and she has kids my kids age and younger - her youngest is 2. 

Anyway, I thought I'd offer up any pain or discomfort from having my loose crown fixed for Julie.  Little did I know!  But it's awfully little compared to what she's going through, and it's a gift I can give to the Christ Child.  Essentially, it's a suffering (a penance, if you will) that I chose willingly, if occasionally whinily!

The second thing: What about all this extra suffering?  I didn't choose to suffer my friend's death, or my dear father-in-law's illness.  Why these unlooked for, unchosen "penances" in Advent? 

There is a saying that sorrow carves in your heart the space that joy will fill. 

Put another way, you can't have a resurrection without a death.

This has been a pain that shocked me out of my own busy preparations.  I was at the pharmacy today, waiting for my new antibiotic, and I really looked at the people around me.  It seems so often, I am so busy, I don't really notice other people, especially people in pain.  That's what I saw: people in pain, people who could use a kind word, the suffering Jesus.

These sorrowful Advent experiences have opened my heart to others, and therefore to Christ, in a way I don't think I've ever been, and I'm grateful for that. 

Organization

The thought that I could help anyone become more organized would boggle the mind of anyone who knew me before I had kids! With help (and through abject desperation), I have become more organized. I had a friend with lots of little kids ask about it, and I thought I would post my response on the blog. I really enjoy seeing other peoples systems and thought you would like to see mine as well as why I ended up where I am. What I'm not sure how to do is import my spread sheets and tables from Word so I can show you my actual lists. If you know how, please tell me in the comments!

I remember when God started sending me lots of kids, I just felt so inadequate. I was more than disorganized, I was a slob. I am not where I should be yet, but I've grown so much in organization and in my relationship with God, and I can see that none of it would have happened with out passing through the crucible you are in right now. It is so hard, but it is such a time of grace. For me, a lot of it was learning to die to self and to let go of what I thought I needed to be happy. The God who created me knew what would make me happy, but I clung so tightly to what I "knew" would make me happy, that I was making myself miserable. Once I started letting go, I started opening up to the delight God was showering me with. Happier Mommy meant happier easier to manage kids, and we were over the hump. That took a long time for me! Slow learner! ;) I ended up doing Fr. Pinto's Plan of Life program, figuring out what God's plan was for me and how He was guiding me, and that made all the difference. But that's another long e mail!

Anyway, He'll supply the grace! I think I know that you go to Adoration? When you are working out a schedule, definitely bring it - it's His opinion that counts!

When my kids were all small, I lived really close to a friend, Eileen, who had a side business giving time management and organizational advice. I was really remarkably disorganized then, not that I am very organized now! One of they key things she did for me was explain how much time I was wasting trying to figure out what to do next. I was drifting through the day trying to "just hold on" because I felt too tired to swim. I have a much easier time now that I have a plan each day. I don't have to follow the plan! But I don't have to worry about what to do with the kids next. Part of my problem was that the kids were getting into trouble because I didn't have specific stuff for them to be doing. I have tons of books of "stuff to with your baby/toddler/preschooler/etc." if you are interested. And I escaped the, hmm, we need dinner in half an hour... which drove me crazy.

Eileen had a bunch of different kinds of lists. She's an educator, so she is really into "different people work differently". I will attach a copy of my current weekly schedule. What I do is sit down every Saturday with my calendar and this sheet and fill in what needs to happen each day (like co-op, Dr. appointments, Mass), then I fill in chores (which days will I do laundry? Clean bathrooms? anything I think should be done that week). Next I put in homeschool stuff and things I'd like to do (playdates, outings, library). Then I fill in the menus based on how much time I'll have to cook each day. Wednesdays we have a lot of crock pot meals because of co-op, for example).

Here's the thing: My "week plan" has changed as the family and my needs have changed. My friend was able to help me in a way that books were not because she helped me "grow my own" schedule. I loved the book Mother's Rule of Life, but trying to do what she did, didn't work for me because it felt like I was imposing her rules on my life. Working out what was key for me and what I needed made my schedule something that helped me instead of something else I had to do. I was serving the "externally imposed" schedule, so I couldn't keep it up, but when I developed my own schedule, it served me and made my life easier. This is not at all a knock on that book (or the many other organizational books I have read)! I got ideas from it that I could use, and I hope the stuff I send you gives you ideas that you can use. I can only imagine it would be overwhelming for some one to try to fill in all the charts!

I have a second sheet that I print out each week (both are posted in the kitchen), and that is my homeschool log. I use it to keep track of what I've done, to make sure I'm not neglecting any subjects (or children!), and to give myself a sense of accomplishment. By accomplishment, I guess I mean completeness. I know I have done enough and I can see I've done something on days where it feel like I have gotten nothing done! Those days can really wear you down, so it helps to be able to see, yeah, we didn't do much today, but the rest of the week was great, or yeah, we did do stuff, just not everything I wanted. I will attach several versions of that because it changes almost every year.

Teaching Kids to Pray 1

First: I am not an expert here. Most of what I have I got from Fr. Pinto or learned from my Mom and other moms. All these are good ways for grown ups to pray, too! If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them! I will do 2 methods per post.

Rote Prayer
We usually pray formally several times a day: when we get up, have meals, go to bed , and before we start our home school day. We use a lot of rote (memorized) prayers this way: Prayer before Meals, Our Father, Hail Mary, Morning Offering, Glory Be, Act of Contrition, and each child has their own "special" prayer which corresponds to how we dedicated them to God when we discovered their existence. Rote prayers are great! The kids memorize them with basic understanding and their understanding should deepen and grow throughout their lives.

But. Rote prayer gets boring for kids if it's the only way they pray!

Empty Chair Prayer
Use 2 chairs. Sit in one and invite Jesus to sit in the other. Really use your imagination and faith to picture Jesus in the chair. Just talk to Him. Little kids often need to do this out loud, so it's good to do this in a quiet room if you have one. For adults, this is great to do while you are driving if you have no one in the passenger seat, put Our Lord there.

Often kids (and grown ups) feel bored or tired with prayer because they can't physically hear or see God speaking. They have to learn to hear Him with their hearts. The imagination is part of what God uses. Not that everything in our imagination is from God, but God does use it to speak to us in prayer.

Sometimes my kids say they don't know what to say to Jesus. I often suggest they tell Jesus a knock knock joke or anything else they would say to their friend. The point is that Jesus is real and really present. I like to tell my friends jokes and laugh with them, it's part of who I am, so I like to tell Jesus funny things. Realistically, A) you're not going to find a better friend than Jesus, and B) if you can't be yourself with God, who already knows what you are like and loves you anyway, where are you going to go?