a season of election

Not that one,
this one.
Not that it matters, as Matt points out. Someone will eventually have to make a decision.
I remember back in the bad old days we used all wait and long for a saving word from Lambeth Palace, we used to sit in bed late at night and parse every turn of the head and eyebrow move and have hope. Ah, the innocence and stupidity of youth. Of course now we know that if someone suitable were picked, God's strength and sanity wouldn't have an opportunity to be made perfect.

And on that note, I am going to stop reading the internet and do something else. Cheerio!

a strengthening thought

I'm still mired in Jeremiah and Lamentations as I climb the mountain of Reading The Bible Chronologically--well, not reading, listening when I'm still half asleep in the mornings, or listening while I'm trying to cook which means shouting 'Will You Be Quiet' every few seconds.

Anyway, where was I, oh yes...I'm particularly struck this time round, and this is the result of blowing through a whole book in a day or two, by the contrast between the dry straight forward narrative accounts of the kings and politics of Israel and Judah in Kings and Chronicles over against the deep well of emotion in the prophets, particularly when God is speaking directly (Jeremiah, of course, is really unhappy, but not more unhappy than God). I've known this intellectually and frequently fight it off on the level of the heart. Its one of the big claims of Christianity brought into stark embodiment in the Incarnation--our God is a personal God. He is personally invested in his creation.

Which, of course, is not what we want. We want something mechanistic and malleable in God, something we can really 'get a handle on'. Nevertheless, instead of cut and dry revelation from God whereby we and he can reach our stated objectives, we are given long long long passages of poetry wherein God is disappointed and angry with us for rejecting him and determined not to let us win but to save us anyway. It is tempting to rush forward to the summery narrative cut and dryness of the gospels where Jesus does stuff, says things, but doesn't seem so Emotive UNTIL you realize (by coming to all the services in Holy Week) that all the words of the prophets, all the deep grief and anger, are the words of Jesus in his passion. He not only absorbs all the sin and destruction of his creation on his cross, but all the words, all the emotion are his.

Its so messy. Its like watching the news versus spending time with someone in their grief. Everyone can do the first, none of us want to do the second.

And on that note, I'm going to turn that smile upside down and go make breakfast. Have a cheerful day!

les crepes

Matt needs to buy me a new crepe pan, but in the meantime, I'm making do as best I can. We don't really call these 'crepes', we call them 'fancy pancakes'. Alouicious always has them for his birthday. If you want to quadruple this recipe, and why wouldn't you, you need
8 eggs
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
2 cups sifted flour
1 cup water
2 cups milk
a large pinch of salt
don't bother with any sugar because then you can't take them right out of the pan and rip off a hunk of steaming pork, wrap it in the fancy pancake, dip the pancake in the saucepan of gravy and eat it right there when nobody is looking, and that would be a real miss for you.
While you're flipping your crepes in your good crepe pan, using plenty of butter in between each, drinking a glass of wine, and slewing batter everywhere because you haven't positioned all your utensils correctly, you can cook two apples into a pulp with more of that Manzanilla that you now always have on hand because it goes so well with everything, again, with no sugar because the apples are perfect without it.
Then you roll each crepe with a dollop of apple and a dollop of mascarpone and stuff them into a baking dish so that everyone at least will get two each, although more is better because there will be a real sense of real loss when they were all completely gone. Drizzle Lyles Golden Syrup generously all over the top and let them warm in a 275 degree oven for 20 minutes. Then spread a whole lot more mascarpone over the top as if it were butter and eat them, either with your hands, or with a spoon, or with a fork, or, as Marigold did, with chopsticks. Of course, more apple ladled over the top would be delicious, if you happen to think of it.

lilies of the field

I'm in the middle of the Great Autumn Clothes Change Over of 2012. Its not that cold out but our school room has an arctic air permeating it every morning now and there's been whining about the lack of sweaters and long trousers. So, of course, when Elphine came in just now wearing what appears to be a mini-skirt, I was able to react on the grounds that her knees would be cold and not to the fact that she looked like...well, there's no good way to end that sentence.

She and her brother are locked in an ongoing angry competition of who can get their school work done first every day, goaded along by their insolent siblings who say things like, "Well, you have to make your bed first," in a seriously nasty tone. Elphine is guaranteed a win today because Alouicious goes to Man's Bible Study (that's what he calls it) on Fridays, kindle and money for soda in hand. He gets up, has his cup of coffee, pretends to read the passage, forgets to get dressed until its almost too late, and then flings everyone into a three minute panic while he tries to catch up and leave for church at the same time as his father. He comes home two hours later smug and stuffed with bacon and tater-tots to finish the whole experience off with whatever we're having for breakfast, usually bread and jam.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, Clothes Change Over of 2012 (cue war music). Even though I got rid of 7 bags of clothes in the Great Spring Clothes Change Over of 2012 it seems that I am wrestling with Leviathan down there. Marigold, for example, is emotionally attached to all the clothes she wore last year but which, tragically, do not fit her at all. "That's my shirt" shrieks the girl who six months ago wouldn't say anything as I dress Fatty Lumpkin. "I want my shirt!"

And Gladys knelt worshipfully next to her drawer nearly all afternoon, waiting to see what I would put in it. Unhappily for her, Elphine went to kindergarten when she was five and had to wear a 'uniform' of khakis and different colored polo shirts, plus one pair of jeans for play. She picked the jeans out of her drawer gingerly, with real tears in her eyes and said, "I don't think these fit me."
"Sure they do," I said blithely, missing the point, "they're exactly right."
"No," she wept, "they don't fit at all, and they're very very ugly" and sobbed louder, flinging them in the pile of stuff to never be seen again. She resumed her kneeling posture ever more vigilant. I had to wait nearly a whole hour for her to be called away to put the khakis in. Pretty sure I'll find them flung all over the floor when I go down there this morning.

Even Romulus and Alouicious got in tussles with me about letting go of things that are really really really small. Romulus has two kinds of shirts in his drawer as a result, things to wear at home because they're full of holes and come up to the middle of his arm, and things to wear out because they won't let all the cold air in. "I just really need the shirt with the frog on it" he let me know after checking things over.

And then, to top things off, Matt stuck his stupid oar in. "Just throw away all the baby boy stuff" he postulated callously. I threw a book at him and gave it all up for the day. Stupid children, growing up, stupid husband, suggesting we ever get rid of the tiny baby sweater with the little cowboy and the horse and the little button shirt that goes under it, and the little tiny tie shoes. I'm going to give up my stupid diet and eat a piece of actual bread with actual jam.

a novel idea i had that i thought i'd share

Every year, the instant I've clicked the last 'purchase' button or 'pay now' or whatever, and laboriously entered all my payment information into all the little lines, and double checked everything and basically and finally committed to all my curricuculum choices for the year
that very moment
without fail
it seems my inbox is suddenly flooded with new and amazing materials I'd never thought nor heard of before. And then morning by morning, week by week, I continue to get new curriculum updates, or happen to read of wonders on other people's blogs.

I mean, I thought I'd carefully researched and planned my year, down to each week's plan, and even (gasp) prayed a bit about what the Lord would have me do (I know, prayer, sometimes we get desperate enough for it), but then some helpful nut on email shows me, without a shadow of doubting or wondering, that I, I and I alone, made the wrong choice.

So then yesterday, when it seemed we'd finally fallen, after a mere six or eight weeks, into a reasonable groove and rhythm--as in, I finally got my technology to let us make use of the Latin I happened to have picked, and Elphine stopped speaking English during our twenty minutes of Mandarin, and Alouicious figured out that he had to open the book in order to do geography, and I switched a few things around so they would work a little better--it occurred to me that I might delete all those emails, without worrying about what wonders I would be missing. And that when I happen upon someone else's glorious review, I might just say to myself 'how nice for them' and then not send myself into a panic of indecision and woe about my stupidity of not having known about that material sooner nor having not had the wisdom to buy it.

Perhaps this might carry over to other realms of life. I can't imagine, just at the moment, how it could, but maybe all of you can.

pie or cobbler or whatever

I started out thinking I'd make apple dumplings but as I went on I got lazier and more pressed for time. After peeling and coring three apples, when they wouldn't fit nicely in my pan I lost my temper and sliced them up. By which point it was supper time and my dessert making moment had essentially vanished so I pivoted towards a pie crust (2 cups flour, 2 sticks butter crumbled together) using milk instead of water for binding, instead of making that complicated dumpling dough I can't even remember how to do. And then it really was supper time so I piled all the dough all over the apples and mushed it down in a heavy-handed and fraught way (normally I'm pretty careful about rolling out pie dough--confidence but not thuggery or it comes out too tough). And then I baked it at 350 while we ate lentils and rice, the children carefully trying to eat around the lentils and Matt and I gazing across the table at each other in boredom and anguish as the baby poured glass after glass of water on the floor and more and more rice was pushed over the side of each plate. The pie/cobbler/whatever came out golden and gorgeous. I should probably also mention that before mashing the dough in over the apples I happened to pour half a cup of Manzanilla along with a whole lot of brown sugar all over them. This, perhaps, is the key to the whole experience. The pie was tart and sweet but not too sweet. I fed it to the children in little prep bowls--first, seconds and then thirds--and stood furtively in the kitchen eating it quietly myself with a large serving spoon.

give me an award, i'm awesome

Having been foolish enough to watch the Emmys last night (because, you know, I thought, how can I just throw away a couple of hours, down into the pit of time that can never be gotten back, ever ever) I am rather struck by the contrast in the clear light of day between an exhausting evening of narcissistic self-adulation arrayed splendifoursly in a room of expensively dressed muddleheaded actors and actresses against the violent crowds of American hating rioters flung far and wide around the globe. The crowd's muddleheadedness is easy to see with all the screaming and blood and flag burning but at least it is turned out. (Boy they really hate America.) The insipidity of the Emmys, turned inward, (Boy, they really love themselves) is just exasperating. Over dressed Americans peacock and poise on a vast stage in hues of neon, chartreuse and ugly while tee-shirted and jean-ed young men wave their fists and die of smoke inhalation. And I, I watch it all, the preeminent fool, and go to bed with a profound headache and fits of anxiety about how idiotic it all is, on every side.

a week gone quickly by

one

Besides the obvious reason of being too busy to carry on with a blog, the real reason I haven't been posting that much is because I've been watching and reading the news with horrified addiction. Not only is the situation in Mali not terribly awesome, but the insanity of whatever 'foreign policy' emanating from this administration is riveting, in a terrifying sort of way. Spent ten minutes in the back yard this week trying to mentally calculate how many potatoes we could grow if we had to, even though we don't really eat potatoes, but the math eventually proved to be too much for me.

two

But we took a break from school and world affairs yesterday to go see the local opera's production of Jack and the Beanstalk. They go round to all the schools and then offer a free showing to homeschoolers. How lovely is that? My own children were philistine in their response, "Are we getting ice cream?" when it was all over. (Ice Cream? What am I? The Easter Bunny? No there's no Ice Cream.) I had a good time, though, so nobody need worry.

three

And then on the way home my very good friend enabled me to buy a desk sitting by the side of the road by walking all the children to a park so that I would be able to shove the desk into my car before someone else came and tried to take it.
"How much did you pay?" inquired Matt with arched eyebrows as he helped me muscle it into the garage.
"Not very much, and look! Its so beautiful!"
"Its not that beautiful. It needs to be glued."
"Just a little glue and then it will be perfect!"
"Whatever," he said, hoping I would go away so he could keep working.

four

So I rushed off to collect the children from my friend who was much taken aback by Glady's rendition of a small psychotically demented pony.
"Watch" she said pushing Gladys higher and higher, "she does this weird thing."
"Oh that," I said when she finally did it again, "that sound can really cut through the back of your skull."

five

So I gathered them away and spent the afternoon cooking for Shepherd's Bowl at church. I realize, of course, that by blogging about it, I'm loosing any merit I might have accrued in engaging in such a selfless act, but who are we really kidding? My martyr and piety points are always completely eviscerated every evening when I tell Matt what I really thought about everything.

I made a vast pot of potato curry stew with chicken, broccoli, carrots, corn and peas. And I had a very good time doing it. The stove at church is so fine--squat and black and smoldering--and there's a sharp sharp knife which makes all the difference.

six

Oh, and I shouldn't go much farther without exclaiming over the half of a pig we've come into. Half a fat fat pig with fat all over. And in another month arrives the bacon and hams. Another very good friend's eyes became misty as she surveyed the arrival of this pig (brought over by other very good friends--can I just say, the number of friends busting out of this place is a surprise to me, given, as I always am, to muttering to myself "Can anything good come out of Binghamton?" And now, if that other very good friend who's thinking about leaving Binghamton would think just a little harder and decide not to do it, my happiness would be complete.) "Where can I get a pig like this?" she wanted to know. Which led necessarily to talk of eventually procuring a cow and all that sort of thing.

seven

Gladys is really internalizing Morning Prayer. She walks around singing all the time now, "Let the hope of the poor be taken away! Let the hope of the poor be taken away! Let the hope of the poor be taken away! Hey!"

Have a lovely weekend and go check out Jen!
seven

goodnight all

And so we come to the end of another extremely long day. While the children idled away their time in indolence and ignorance, I baked a bunch of stuff--cinnamon rolls, cheese and pepperoni rolls, muffins--and then made realio trulio cheeseburgers. Well, Matt cooked them, but I mushed the ground beef together for a long time, muttering curses at the state of the world and the fact that by 4:30 this afternoon, Elphine and Alouicious had not completed the absurdly simple number of tasks on their wretched laminated lists.

So, being that it is still depressingly pouring rain and I ought to be going to sleep anyway, I thought I would end this wreck of a day with some Jeeves and the Old School Chum.

"'Abandon the idea, Jeeves,' I said. 'I fear you have not studied the sex as i have. Missing her lunch means little or nothing to the female of the species. The feminine attitude towards lunch is notoriously airy and casual. Where you have made your bloomer is in confusing lunch with tea. Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it. At such times the most amiable of the sex become mere bombs which a spark may ignite. But lunch, Jeeves, no. I should have thought you would have known that--a bird of your established intelligence."

when's the eating

I'd been really wanting to cook a lot of little things from a Spanish Tapas book I have sitting around and so after church one Sunday in August, Matt roasted a large piece of pig and I fussed around a lot of little dishes. First up are these egg stuffed tomatoes. Each tomato has an egg, heavy cream and Manchego cheese mellowing in its interior and was baked for a while until the egg was creamy and gorgeous. The end pictures weren't remarkable at all but over all...what an amazing way to eat egg and tomato. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and remember it.



Then, it turns out, you can deep fry sweet peppers without any kind of batter. I dropped these into hot hot oil for a bit and waited for them to turn a stark beautiful green.

Oops, turns out they actually turned brown and wrinkly. However, when I cut into the first one and tasted it, I thought perhaps I would cry, but then I thought, how stupid to cry when you can just have another bite and another and another. 
I lathered these all over everything I ate that day and the day after.

I should also say, these were grown locally by a couple who who belong to COGS.  Every Sunday, as the summer rolls gently by, a table in the Parish Hall is laden with the contents of their garden and with glorious eggs from their chickens. You walk in to see people hovering prayerfully over all the beautiful vegetables and praising God.

This wasn't in the cookbook but the combination of butter, mushroom and Manchego was not to be resisted by me. I kept adding butter as the mushrooms absorbed them...I wouldn't be able to tell you how much butter because I lost track after a while.

When it came time to sit down together for dinner, Matt told all the children that these mushrooms were so disgusting that we were doing them a great favor by not making them eat them. They seemed dubious but there was so much pork and bread mounded on their plates some of them eventually forgot. This, along with a whole avocado, we managed to eat silently and completely. Its so difficult, having to share food with children or other people.

And then I roasted some baby tomatoes from my garden with thyme, garlic and olive oil.

Matt also took the innerds of the egg stuffed tomatoes and mushed it around with some fresh herbs and poured cream all over it. And then we just stood there and ate it with spoons, again, very quietly, because the stupid baby loves tomato and squawks like an out of control raging duck when she sees one. I tried to photograph it but it came out badly every time.



So here is the long wait before dinner. Marigold and The Fat Baby of Binghamton sat for something like 45 minutes hoping for food.

And here is Elphine photographing the food along with me. Not sure what she planned to do with the pictures but she made a little news report later on the same camera.

Another waiting child.

And a child who wasn't that hungry because he ate a lot of cake at church and wishes he was playing on his kindle or something but is making the best of a bad situation by taking quiet mental inventory of all the wrongs and injustices done to him since very early that morning.

And what am I doing photographing during prayer? Doesn't he look pious? Don't be deceived. The second the prayer was over he asked if he was going to have to eat everything. "Oh no no," I said, "You get to eat pork and bread. Everything else tastes funny and is bad for you."
"Oh," he sighed heavily, relieved.
Elphine narrowed her eyes at me and insisted that she loves mushrooms. Irritating child.

I've been trying to get this post up every day for the past week. IN FACT, I had promised myself I would blog every day, without fail. But instead of blogging I recalibrated our homeschool day and plan and continued trying to get ready for the start of Sunday School, which is tomorrow. Just as soon as Sunday School is humming nicely along I can face the Great Autumn Clothes Change Over of 2012. It is at these moments that I long to live in a temperate one temperature climate. And now, I will arise, and have another go at those Sunday School Rooms because those little sheep are not going to dust and arrange themselves. Have a lovely weekend and Go To Church!

the season

Sitting here with a profound cold in the head trying to watch the Democratic Convention. And again I ask, Why does it all have to be So Late? Elphine has made brownies at this advanced hour to avert the coming apocalypse ("If I don't make brownies today, I'll DIE.")

Ooop, not the convention, football. And so begins a long season of depression as the Cowboys lose a bunch. But we're rooting for 'em anyway.

Much woe on the part of the boys, though, that they're not allowed to favor the Giants when the Cowboys are playing. "I hope they both win" says Elphine, ever the moderate. All she needs is a little bit of plastic surgery and a whole lot of lipstick and the gleam in her eye will take her all the way to the top.

She is developing a gratifying combination of deadpan commentary and timing. Yesterday, as I was struggling along not speaking Mandarin she turned up her nose and at every prompt, responded in English instead of Mandarin.
Pimsleur: Say, I speak a little English.
Elphine: I speak a little English.
Everyone giggles.
Pimsleur: Excuse me, can I ask, do you speak English?
Elphine: Excuse me, can I ask? Do you speak English?
Me: Say it in Mandarin!
Amazingly, though, she stopped when it was no longer funny. What a gift!

Anyway, what was I blogging about? The Convention? Can't remember. Going to bed. Tomorrow I'll discover that the Cowboys really did lose and the Democrats really really really really really really love women.

futility

As quickly as the four oldest children are putting away blocks, the two little ones are flinging them out. They are screaming at a fever pitch and running and, now, finally, throwing the blocks across the room.One considers getting up and waving the arms and trying to reverse the inevitable path of destruction and woe, but then one's blood pressure would rise and one might have a stroke or something.

I've recently been readings Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and wondering why God's present will allows the running out of things and their constant replenishment. The jar of oil starts out full but runs empty and you have to take the trouble to get more oil to put in the jar so that eventually it can run out and you can do it again...and again...and again. The circle of emptiness and fullness is built in to our lives firmly, fixedly. I'm going to get new paper and markers for the Sunday School rooms, and stickers and folders and new beans for pouring so that they can all be used up and ruined and thrown away.

Many days this irritates me. I just swept the floor. I don't want to do it again so soon. The children just put the school room in order. Now they are having to do it again because of their tyrannical and grimy siblings. We just bought oil last week. And rice. Didn't want to have to buy it again so soon.

And so it is, under the sun.
So much so that its hard to imagine things going on forever and not getting ruined. Imagine creation not in a cycle of death but in no cycle at all, just in worship. Frankly, I have no idea what that will look like. Will the pleasure of getting something put right still be there if it is never broken and needing to be fixed? Without the emptiness, we don't know the pleasure of filling the jar. Irritation on one hand, pleasure on the other. It doesn't say, at your right hand are first irritation and then pleasures forever more, just the pleasures forevermore and also the fullness of joy.

But then also, it doesn't say much about circles in scripture. Sure, we see them everywhere, even in the relationship of God and his people, it seems like an endless circle of sin and forgiveness. But the writers of scripture more often talk about paths, or roads. "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." A path goes somewhere. The jar empties and is filled along the way, but the path itself doesn't circle. We either go towards God and his pleasures or away from him. I imagine the circle gets tighter and more frustrating the farther we go from God. Well, when I'm bent on a path of destruction, not wanting to look God in the face, for whatever reason, my own steps generally become more circular and futile. Then God comes and breaks the circular motion and "makes me know the path of life." Just as I, now, will go break in on these two babies and put them to bed. Let the circle be broken, as some might say.

7 quick takes

one

I can hear the babies stirring the dog water with spoons. I'm pretty sure they have put all the food from his bowl into the water. I could get up and freak out. On  the other hand, I can hear where they are. So if I freak out they will just go do something worse, probably.

two

Emily asked how we deal with whining and I've been wandering around the last two days thinking about what we do. Clearly, whatever we're doing works only part of the time or I wouldn't be using the word 'whine' as often as I do. It is like battling down the Assyrians. You may have them off your back for a few minutes but the second you think you can relax, there they are again.

So what are some things that have worked? It entirely depends on the child.
Elphine doesn't whine, much, so that's a great help.

So far Gladys doesn't whine either. She does have a high pitched mosquito voice but that's only because no one really listens to her. You can usually get her to stop screaming by pressing on her head and making her say it slowly. Usually she just wants to tell you that she needs another band-aid.
Romulus goes down at the end of his sentences, in a charmingly authoritative, though unacceptable way and so it doesn't sound like whining. When you tell him to stop, he nods his head and widens his eyes and stops, for a tiny minute.


So it really comes down to Alouicious, who is a preeminent whiner, and Marigold.
Marigold, for the moment, just has to be given a fried egg when she starts whining. She is usually too busy to eat and so when she starts to do this horrible dying cow moan, its time to fry an egg. In the last month she has whined less and been saying things like, 'I hungry egg' or, 'I thirsty water'. This has been an enormous help not only so that we don't loose our minds, but also in the matter of everybody else figuring out what a Helping Verb is.
Alouicious is like water dripping on a stone. My first response is usually, 'Stop whining. The Israelites whined in the wilderness and they all died. God hates whining. Stop it.' And then, because that doesn't stop it, I say something like, 'Stop. Lower your voice. Ask me again in a normal way.' And then, 'Here is what you sound like. WEeeeeeaahhhhhhh. Now try to sound like me.' And I lower my voice way down low and sing 'Old Man River'. And then we figured out that Alouicious is usually fine if he has some control over his life. So, so far in the last three weeks There Hasn't Been Any Whining Yet because I gave him his list on the first day and told him how much time he can have on his kindle and let it go. He reports to me obsessively even though I have very little interest in where he is on his agenda. Of course, he reports to me obsessively about everyone else as well, and that is not acceptable.

My other life long parenting strategy is to give as little information about what's coming next as possible. There is nothing worse than everyone thinking they're going to the library for a few hours and then have it not happen. So, we don't tell them Anything and then, when its time to go, do a drill sergeant routine to get them dressed and in the car as suddenly as possible. It takes ten minutes and there's no time for anyone to say, 'Where are we going? Why are we going? What are you going to get me? Can I have a muffin? I'm hungry. I need to go to the bathroom. I don't wannnaaaa go.' If you go from lolling about playing to suddenly scrambling to get in the car, there is no anxiety about the future and no time to get something out of your mother. I also rarely give warning that someone is coming over to play because that way, if someone gets sick or cancels, I don't have to hear about the horrible disappointment for the rest of the week.

three

Well, clearly, that should have been its own post. In possible later posts, How to Fail at Potty Training Every Single Time.

four

I have been longing to watch the Republican Convention but I honestly can't stay up for it. Why on earth does the main stuff have to start so late? I go to sleep at 9 o'clock! I did watch Ann Romney yesterday afternoon to see what all the hype was about and...well....really. I'm not married to Mitt Romney. In no way do I want to go home from any dance with him. And this little American Experiment, to me, does not even remotely resemble a dance. I'm not looking for a candidate who will make me feel 'safe' or who will be the hardest worker ever, or who will relate to me personally. What on earth with the 'relating personally' factor. Even Anderson Cooper's poor sad beautiful eyes as he tries to get his panel to figure out whether or not Romney is being 'personal' enough does not move me to care. To channel Mark Steyn, the modern world is coming to a fiscal end. Why isn't everyone running around the stage tearing their clothes, pouring ash on their heads and wailing with repentance and fear? That, I would stay up to watch.

five

If this is true, it would be amazing. I used to throw my malaria prophylactic into the building site at my boarding school, hoping to get sick to avoid school banquets. I got sick often but never missed one of those difficult and uncomfortable evenings. In fact, one year, I fell horribly ill on a Monday before but then was well enough the night of and was forced to go. Still, I was gorgeously thin. Well, maybe not 'gorgeous', maybe more gaunt.

six

I guess I better get up and feed the ravenous pack. There wasn't enough free bread at Shepherd's Bowl so I'll have to make pancakes instead of french toast. And we're out of syrup so they'll have to have jam or expensive golden syrup. And Romulus will cry because he would rather have 'Hot Cereal'. And I will get angry because what kind of horrible little kid would rather have Cream of Wheat from a box than real pancakes.

seven

Yesterday I got up to find that Matt had not just given Alouicious a cup of coffee, but had given ALL THE CHILDREN COFFEE, including the baby.
"What" he said when I started crying, "they wanted to know what it tastes like."
"BUT ITS ONLY 7:30 and ITS FULL OF CAFFINE."
"Well" he said, "Its mostly milk and sugar."
"SUGAR! BUT ITS ONLY 7:30 IN THE MORNING. I SHOULD STILL BE
 SLEEPING."
"Not with your new routine" he said, "You should have been up two hours ago."

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

a canine interlude

It was vouchsafed to me yesterday that I had mentioned only to a few people that we found the owner of the white dog--just a few minutes after I snapped this picture in fact.

The night before our first day of school--because I can feel that the devil, or someone, doesn't really want me to do school every day, including yesterday and possibly today and even some days last week--we took the dogs for a little walk and on our walk someone recognized him and stopped us and then ran to get his owner while we went home and waited. Joy abounded, as you can imagine, except in the hearts of all six children who started our first school day with long tearful prayers for the health and safety of 'Bonzoo' as we finally had been calling him. His name turned out to be Brutus...hardy har har.

For many subsequent days Marigold wandered around asking for the location of 'Bonzoo'. "Where Bonzoo?" she would whine pitifully and then answer herself, "Bonzoo gone." Balancing her distress was Matt's euphoric good mood. He practically jumped and skipped through the week, grinning and talking about the providence of God in caring for the dog and his owner. Everyone secretly wanted to hit him.

Turns out, in the end, that Asherbanapal also probably missed him. Ashy has been suffering an increasingly funny tummy and we've been having longer and longer walks while he tries to sort everything out. Yesterday we ended up at the vet with rather an embarrassing mess and a long, and finally, expensive amount of clean up. Woe is me. "What can cause the excessive growth of this little bacteria?" I inquired of the nurse as the vet hadn't really had time for us after the awful foul scene of the poor dog's derriere.
"A change in routine, stress, loss" the nurse rattled off.

So, there we are. Ashy must have missed Bonzoo. I can't think of any other big changes in his placid and routine bound life. And no, I don't accept that being sat on by six children would be "stressful". Children, you might remember, are a Gift from the Lord and therefore "not stressful". (That was just a little joke.)

a little learning

So what are we doing this year, for school?
Some of you asked, perhaps foolishly, but maybe you know best.
Hmmm....well.....

For poetry Elphine and Alouicious will be memorizing a couple of Tennyson poems--"The Eagle" and "The Flower in the Crannied Wall" even though I think its been identified as one of the worst poems ever written (where did I read that?)--and working through the new Roman Roads Media Grammar of Poetry, the first three lessons of which have been fun and interesting. Romulus and Gladys will go memorizing poems we happen to come along that we like. Right now those are "The Owl and the Pussycat", "The Puffin" and "Custard the Dragon".

For Grammar and Writing we're using Classical Writing again. The two oldest are doing the Aesop books. Romulus will be working through Memoria Press' Story Time Treasures if he could just.... remember... the..stupid....alphabet. We're already behind because its either been fall behind or run screaming around the yard from frustration. I jest, but only a little. Romulus reads just fine when he chooses to remember the letters. His intelligence is matched almost perfectly by his indolence.

For literature/vocab we're using Memoria Press Lit. Guides. Elphine is starting out with Heidi. Alouicious is finishing King Arthur from last year because it's really a fifth grade guide and he needs a lot of help. After those we'll do The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge and then they can pick what they'd like to do next.

For history we're listening to The Story of the World volumes one and two, carrying on with the Veritas Press history cards in chronological order and doing both Memoria Press' Famous Men of Rome and D'Aulaire's Greek Myths.

Are you bored yet? WE AREN'T. We are mesmerized by the beauty of all these books and the chance to read and read and read and read and read and write and write and write some more.

For geography we're doing Memoria Press' Middle East, North Africa and Europe with a constant soundtrack of Geography Songs to pep it up.

Math, what can I say, we ditched Singapore Math and jumped into the Life of Fred boat. And what a marvelous boat it is. The constant squabbling over who gets the book when is charming.

But we didn't totally drop Singapore, we're using them for Science, overlaid with Lyrical Science songs.

As for foreign languages, Marigold, Gladys and I are dabbling in Pimsleur Mandarin, Elphine and Alouicious are whining their way through Visual Latin and all of us together are doing French with the Memoria Press Student Guide as a base but that's just so we'll do it.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays we say Morning Prayer (rite two, 1979, and believe me, I feel guilty every other day) with The Shorter Catechism for Young Children (not the Heidelberg, yet, sorry Matt) and John 3 plunked in instead of lessons and singing instead of the psalm (things like "O the deep deep love of Jesus", "New every morning", old ICA songs, and "Jesus loves me") . Don't worry, we read the bible in the evenings...sometimes...when we don't have to be somewhere.

On Fridays we'll do art and music, even if it kills us.
And that's about it.
(OH! Elphine and Alouicious are having proper piano lessons as well.)
As if that wasn't enough.

a new school year, all fresh and shiny

 The children swimming in that beautiful lake.

So we've been back to school for two weeks. The weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth has been within bound and reason. It's hard for everyone to switch over from waking up and playing to waking up and whining about having to work. Phew. Me chief of all. Add to the insanity that I decided I ought to wake up half an hour earlier this year and you have a less than placid kick off. The first week I wandered around in a drowsed stupor and the second week I skipped waking up early because of our little unplanned holiday. So this week will be just like the first week.

But I gain an awful lot in that half hour. First of all, I actually get out of bed, work out and do laundry. And then while the kids are waking up and asking stupid questions ("Are we doing school? Should I get dressed? Can I go buy a toy at the store?")  I get breakfast made and the house picked up. By pushing heartily through the early morning, when the children finish up school in the afternoon, I am not facing another mountain of house work. Instead I lie back in my new chair and think about blogging. Except that so far I haven't actually had the mental energy to do it. But I'm really hoping that will change as we acclimatize ourselves to structure and work again.

A friend recently asked "How do you do it all!" with a generous measure of admiration and possible disbelief in her voice. I've thought about this often since she asked, nearly every day in fact, and I think I have an answer. First of all, I don't do it All. I do a lot, but I don't do it All. I do a lot more than when I had one and then two and then three and then even four children. With each child comes a greater capacity to work. You discover that getting up one more time with a vomiting child isn't going to kill you, its just going to make you very very angry and tired. And along with the capacity to work comes the ability to discover what you really care about. So, over the last few years, I've discovered that I have to have a clean house (I know, my mother finds this hard to believe). I don't have to be on top of the laundry, I don't have to read books, I don't have to cut everyone's fingernails, but I do have to have the house picked up in order to be able to think.

Second, the babies stop being babies. I wish someone had told me this a long time ago, although I may not have been in a position to hear it so never mind. When you have a couple of babies to haul around, or even one, then why on earth are you trying to DO anything but make dinner and occasionally go to the mall? Babies don't need enrichment or school. They just need regular food and regular attitude checks. Bigger kids need enrichment and school, but babies, so help me, need to spend more time napping.
Third, big kids can do a lot of work. And work is so good, so life giving for everyone. School itself is interesting and fun. Cleaning the kitchen and having it look gleaming and pretty is satisfying. Making your bed and having your room picked up makes it possible to think AND to have friends over to play.

Elphine really loves to tick things off a list. Alouicious doesn't care so much, but its helpful to know what to do every day. He likes to wake up very early and do everything he can before other people wake up to distract him. Romulus, on the other hand, is learning about timing.
"Are you ready to do some work?" I asked the other day.
"Nah," he said, "I need to finish this game."
"Okay" I said cheerfully because I didn't want stop sweeping the floor. But three minutes later when I had started to make bread and he came in and announced imperiously, "Now I will do math."
I said, "Oh no you won't. I just waited for you, now you'll wait for me. And don't talk to me that way."

Maybe another time I'll write about what kind of curriculum we're using, unless it sounds boring to all you Gentle Readers. I am extremely interested in the subject but am told by Matt that it can be tiresome to hear too much about it. Well, he didn't say it quite like that but his eyes glazed over and I heard a gentle snoring after a few minutes of telling him about how many Literature Guides I thought we could do in one half of a year. More interesting to me is this cake--Nigella's Baby Bundt cake--which I made for my birthday. It has a hint of lime and needed a hint of brandy or something but that addition seemed a touch extravagant at the time. After eating it with fruit, a drizzle of golden syrup and full fat cream, you can eat it again three days later lathered in jam. And when your child says, "I like syrup more than jam," you can say, "how can you like bought syrup more than my gorgeous home made jam, you little twit" and then he can say, "well, I do really like your jam" very sheepishly. And now I'm going to remove a large marker from the baby and put her to bed because, remember, Babies Need More Naps.

happy birthday to me, I'm 100 and 3

So starts a ghastly song made up by the children last year. It goes on

And I'm still in pre-school
And I want my Mommmyyyy.
But my Mommy's at work
And she gave me cheese pizza
And I want my ice-cream.

All sung to the tune of 'Happy Birthday'. They sing it loudly all year. Fortunately for me, I haven't heard it once today, even though it is my birthday, because Five, read FIVE, whole Kennedy children are up swimming themselves silly at a little cottage on a beautiful lake. The baby only remains to me for the rest of the day and she is napping.

And so, to celebrate the quiet and the occassion, I'm going to make

jam

bread

pie

and

cake.

And then I expect I will be so exhausted I'll have to have a lie down.

Here is me, having lived through another year.

Clearly, to maintain my girlish figure, I won't be eating the jam nor pie nor cake nor even the bread, but I will smell it and look at it feel sad about the impermanence of life due to the terrible ravages of sin in the world. That's the sort of thing I like to do on a birthday. Given an empty jar and a dead balloon, I will happily put the balloon in the jar and take it out again and help everyone around me to see that life should be taken seriously. A foolish man jumps about and sings and eat cakes, but the man who mourns on his birthday isn't surprised by anything. Isn't that in the bible somewhere?

7 quick takes

one

It is gray and pouring rain. It feels like we're about to have winter already. Seriously considering taking up a seasonal affective disorder because, well, it seems to be there for the taking.

two

We're starting school next week anyway. Let it rain because the children will have LOTS to do. Think its going to be a little shock for their poor tender selves. Can hear the agonized whining already, just because they've had to make their beds and practice the piano this morning.

three

If you can call that plinking that I'm listening to right now, "practicing the piano".
We have a proper piano teacher! And so it won't be my problem when they have to explain why they don't know the song. Hard to put into words how happy I am about this.

four

So what do you do on your last full day of summer holiday and its pouring rain? If you're a child that is?
Watch this funny little guy.

My mom thought that "beyblading" was some cool Olympic sport. Sorry Mom! It turns out to be the above. And All Six of my children do it all day long, even the baby. She picks up anything she can find and flings it down hoping it will spin--plates, forks, grapes, books, everything--shouting what sounds to be 'epic battle' but I can't really tell.

five

But if you're me on your last day of summer "holiday" you fold laundry, finish making up a strict school schedule and wait for the last evening of VBS. Five evenings of four children going to hear about Jesus and two children going to bed early has brought about white fish baked with curry powder rubbed all over (I don't care, I like ordinary curry powder) and laid over a bed of stir fried vegetables from my garden. Well, I say 'stir fry' but that's just because I stirred them around in a pan and lathered them with butter and curry powder until they were practically fried. AND then, the next night, I sauteed shrimp with garlic, chives, some kind of old chili pepper from the back of the fridge and tomato from my garden, swirled round with a dollop of greek yogurt, a cutting of basil and a lather of hot chili oil at the end. So delicious. Honestly, I would have paid ten dollars to eat it.

six

Tomorrow we will have been married eleven years. Eleven years of remarkable eating. Eleven years of a wrecked house and constant cleaning up. Eleven years of pastoring and studying and preaching and teaching. Eleven years of pretty good, though sometimes very cheep, wine. Eleven years of stupid exercise. Eleven years of arguing about which documentary to watch. Eleven years of shouting at children to go back to sleep. Eleven years of talking theology and politics. Eleven  years of reading the Onion, Failblog, Cakewrecks, and other stupid stuff on the interwebs. Eleven years of the common things of life. Eleven years of sheer bliss.

seven

So now I guess I'll go have a stab at that "strict schedule". You have to make it, you know, so you can have something Not to do. Every morning over the next ten months I'll wake up and look at my plan for the day and say, to myself and anyone else standing around, 'boy, that was a dumb idea. Who thought of that?' And then go on and do something entirely different. But if I didn't have the plan, where would I be? This year I've got a fourth grader, a third grader, a first grader, a kindergartener, a preschooler and a menace. ALL that will be accounted for in my plan, as well as blogging, laundry, exercise, tea with a friend, occassional Shepherd's Bowl cooking, Sunday School teaching and organizing, maybe a little Altar Guild, some texting and internet surfing and then, also, constant Pimsleur Mandarin CD's in the background so I can shout 'BE QUIET, I JUST MISSED THE ENGLISH!'

on a saturday evening

Lately we've been exclusively eating frittata on Saturday evenings.

Eighteen or so eggs, a dollop of full fat cream, chives or sauteed onion or something, a golden mound of some kind of cheese, sometimes some sausage, all whipped together and plunked into a pan and into the oven at 350 for a while--until its golden and puffy and a knife comes out clean.

And a massive loaf of bread sliced up and lathered with butter. And a big salad.

Doesn't it sound all golden and lovely?
But here's the thing. Tonight There Were No Leftovers.
Let me repeat....There Were No Leftovers. The wretched children ate every single scrap of food and then cast their eyes about for whatever else there might be.

Which just, well, it just made me angry. Leftovers are such an integral and necessary part of a well functional household. If you  don't have leftovers, well, where are you? Stuck making a dinner every single night, that's where.

Its a crying, as they say, shame. Two nights ago I made gorgeous mounds of strawberry shortcake. Two cups flour, one tablespoon baking powder, pinch salt, two-thirds cup lard, one cup milk, and, just to be really special, a spattering of cinnamon and a Whole Third Cup of Real Sugar, mushed together onto a baking pan at 350 for a while till a knife came out clean. And then a whole glorious bowl of strawberries with sugar until they were  running with juice and sweetness. Only three of the six children were there so I figured there would clearly be a chance to nip in well after dark and just finish it up. What? You don't bake with an eye towards that last closing of  the fridge whenever everyone else isn't around?

Anyway, There weren't Any Leftovers. None. Three children, one vat of strawberry shortcake, No Leftovers. It was almost enough to make me give up. Really, what's the point. I might as well just crack open a can of spam and climb under my bed.

the fence post

As many of you know, we live right next to our place of work, Church of the Good Shepherd (COGS). Matt once did a little video of his 30 second "commute" with much smug hilarity. On Sunday mornings we get all dressed up and trip lightly up our little walk to the back door of the church. Of course, when I say we, I mean Matt and all the children. It takes me a teensy bit longer to get there what with the fact that I can never find my shoes and someone has walked off with my Sunday School Lesson and then it turns out that the person who hid my shoes had also carefully scattered all the other shoes in the whole house all over the living room so that if we invite anyone home for a nip of sherry they will have to remove a wide ranging assortment of all fashions/all season's footwear. So anyway, this is the view out of my bedroom window. Matt "opened up a bed", a habit to which he has recently become addicted, and then, in a stroke of brilliance, filled it with all this lovely pebble so that we can sit about feeling practically French (except that it's way to muggy and buggy just this moment).

 If you stand on our walkway this is the view towards the parking lot. I've said before that if you sit quietly in this little area you can hear everyone going by across the parking lot, to and from the bus and grocery, and you can hear everything that's said in the church kitchen. Not that I would every sit and listen, mind you, but it may be that other people, who might be in my back garden, might be sitting quietly. You never know. Mostly, though, I don't sit. The moment I sit I leap up again to destroy some weed or slug or horrible beatle or something.

The space between our house and the church is very sheltered and safe. But by the point of the walkway, there has been a wide open vast expanse of green encompassing a straight shot to the main road on one side, and a straight shot to the other quieter, though highly foottrafficked road on the other. Either way, if a child or dog or cat wanted to make a break for it, there wasn't a thing besides our vigilance to stop them. Although, to be fair, my children, because of all the fear of God we threatened into them, are pretty obedient. Its all the strangers walking by and/or breaking into the church (well, I say 'all' but its only happened twice) that make me really nervous.

So now, when you look at the church from the quieter road, here is what you see. And who knows how many children and dogs might be back there? None, maybe, or a dozen. Ha!

And notice that the lovely big church airconditioner is outside of my bit. So guess whose children aren't out there wrecking and breaking everything? That's right! Mine aren't. They're on my side wrecking and breaking their own toys.


And here is that same section from the otherside, in what is now a capacious amount of lawn and what will eventually be filled with beds of flowers and vegetables. Matt is planning to "dig out beds" until there is only one tiny section of grass and there he will put in a "water feature". Knock yourself out, babe.
We chucked the pink plastic house fifteen minutes after Gladys climbed up and then slid down head first. I'd been biding my time for an excuse. Its the innoncence of children, I always say, that leads us forward.

 
Here is the fence in its initial stages.
There was a whole day of a huge post hole digger and cement mixer and many people to help put in the posts. And then another hot week of dedication by Wardens (that's an Anglican thing, not a prison thing) themselves who put the whole thing together, slat by slat. Every morning the dogs would rush out to attack and then stop for a long pat.

Alouicious, after observing the proceedings from some amount of time, realized that the space was quickly narrowing up and pitched a little fit. Turns out, though, that when we sit about eating our suppers of a long summer evening, when they go over to the other side of the fence, its much quieter. On the whole, a beautiful arrangment.





And here are the old arborvitaes. All green and fine and sheltering. Matt watered them faithfully until we started having rain every single day. 





 I hope to plant fruit trees all along here, or something. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.


Meanwhile, the children strut around and complain about how everything is too hot. Stupid northern children. Don't they realize this is the right temperature?