A Good Day

I have been reading Lost Warships. It is a very brief survey of wartime marine archeology. It is one of those great coffee table books that draw you in and make you ignore everyone else in the room. I dunno, maybe it will help out down the road when we are trying to come up with a unit study project...

Went to a late mass this morning which was a nice break. Usually we go to 9am mass because the children have Sunday school afterwards. But there was none this week.

Today on the way to church I told the children that if they paid attention during the readings and were able to answer some questions I would quiz them on later, they would get a reward when we went to Stuff Mart. As a result, they sat riveted for the first, second, and third reading, and even for part of the homily. It was an amazing thing to witness. They did reasonably well on the questions. Now, I had already decided to budget in Sculpy clay for the girls and replacement darts for Richard's Nerf gun last night when we were planning our post-church trip to Stuff Mart, so I figured there was no harm if I piggy-backed the extra effort on their part in church to round out the day. I won't have to repeat this next week because we will be back to Sunday school. They will be quizzed anyway with no further effort required on my part...

On top of everything else we just got done with Greek, violin, and guitar. The girls spent an hour or so working on their Sculpy creations today and I fired the creations for them in the oven.

Biting My Nails

The two eldest left this morning with their mom to go take their exams. I hope we are not in for a nasty surprise...

Easter Sunday

Jack is finally willing to attend church with the rest of us. For about a year he was like Damian in the Omen whenever he caught sight of the spires and the stained glass windows. Now he is willing to go inside without pitching a fit. Once inside though he runs around like a mad man and pulls off his nice church clothes. I got to sit with the older kids today and his mom had to deal with him...

Got all the lessons in tonight on top of cleaning, cooking, and other chores. Fighting with Richard to hold his left wrist correctly when playing the violin. Nothing else is going to progress with his playing until he stops flattening out his wrist which only serves to flatten out all the notes... Sophie is doing much better than I expected so far with the guitar... long nimble fingers. Had to yell at Helen about putting more effort into reading. I worry that we have let her watch too much TV and her brain is turning to mush. I read to her extra long tonight and then she helped me bake muffins.

Tonight I saw my two eldest, on the cell phone, talking to another little girl who lives across town, working together earnestly to hash out the thornier technical aspects of some internet application that runs some on-line virtual-world game (Webkins, I think it is called). Now I have done similar things, but not until I was required to do something like this at work, and not until I was in my late twenties. It was just very odd to behold, these kids who are not even ten years old, doing almost the exact same thing. We are in a new and totally unexpected world.

Phonetic Spelling

Busy Monday

We visited their grandparents in Ellicott City. We have to go home to WV tomorrow. There are a lot of other people I wish we could have fit on on this trip to DC but we were just here for a few days

I am watching the children tonight while Rebecca goes to her sister's confirmation mass.

We got in another Greek lesson tonight, a reading lesson with Helen, practiced the violin, and had Sophie go through her guitar exercises. Their grandparents gave her a collection of Beatrix Potter stories, so the girls sat there at the dining table in Rebecca's parents' house doing drawings while I read Potter after Potter book to them till I became hoarse. They love Beatrix Potter.

Now they have a few minutes of quiet time before bed. I am going to relax now and read the Creighton novel my dad gave me.

Traveling

We are on the road, taking a long weekend. I brought along the instruments and the books. We were driving all yesterday and were completely exhausted.

Finally started getting stuff in today. We took the children to the Franciscan Monastery in DC. Becca and I went to confession then we all went on one of the guided tours of the main church and the replica of the catacombs. Then we came back to her parents house and chilled out for the rest of the day.

I got in two reading lessons with Helen (short ones), two Greek lessons with Rick, a guitar lesson and a violin lesson. Sophie also did some reading on her own out of a history book. I hope all of that begins to make up for the several hours the children have logged in front of the DVD player over the last two days.

Afternoon in Kanawha State Forest

A good day

Got up early and got the Saturday cleaning done before everyone was up. Made everybody breakfast then got in a violin and guitar lesson.

Did more cleaning the rest of the morning while Becca went out to a meeting. Sophie practiced her reading and writing, reading book to Helen then putting together a story book. Richard sat on the computer using the Scratch site from MIT getting a presentation to work. That was a big thrill for him when he finally got it to do what he wanted. Helen puttered around with Jack. She is still so much in that imaginary world.

After Becca got back we packed everyone up and went to the pool. Sophie passed a swimming test that the life guard had her do so she could be allowed to swim in the deep end.

Got in another violin and guitar lesson. Helen had me sit down and do a reading lesson with her. Now it is the end of the day. Everyone is quiet now in their rooms.