Last week: fire station (always a big hit with kids).
Yesterday: Cox Farm.
Does seeing baby pigs really count as educational?
It was freezing, but Jenny stripped off two layers. She was miserable, but she was miserable before taking off her sweater and long sleeved shirt anyway.
We’ll count this as “socialization” I guess.
Or perhaps phys-ed?…they did have to run up hills or climb a staircase for the slides.
Definitely cooper-ative play. Katie and her friend Maria were each too scared to go down the big spiral slide together, so their older brothers gallantly stepped forward to ride with them. Very sweet.
Biology class? (learning about the jaws of large sea creatures)?
Hay rides are a good lesson in how people used to travel before cars. Also, in how hay protects you from the wind and keeps you much warmer than you might have thought possible.
We were supposed to be meeting with a Catholic homeschool group. We got there and found one other mom. It was freezing and standing around was making everyone cranky, so my friend and I took off for the hayride.
Later, as we sat in the warm car and ate lunch, we saw the other mother again. She apologized that we hadn’t caught up with the group. It turns out we “missed” praying the rosary and the Angelus…in the freezing cold…with half a gazillion little children who were hungry for lunch and/or staring longingly at the slides. Well, actually, those saintly children were probably not doing that, but mine would have been.
I’m such a bad Catholic mom that I was elated that we missed the rosary. The Angelus would have been fine, but the rosary? in the wind and cold? No matter how good of a mom you may think you are…no matter how well you may feel you are raising your children in the faith…there will always be other families with mild-speaking moms and rosary-praying children to show you just how much more you could be doing.
Reit This Way 
Ha! There’s a family in our parish with the same number of kids who don’t make a peep all through Mass. While mine are crawling on the kneelers, loudly asking if we’re done yet, and whispering and poking each other, theirs sit quietly in their seats, never even squirming. So, when their oldest boy dropped the Eucharist a couple of weeks ago, I was secretly pleased. Shouldn’t have been, but I was. And that’s my confession for the day.🙂
Great pictures! That looks like a fun place.I guess I must be another bad Catholic mom because I would also be glad that we missed it and I know my kids would have had a hard time being patient. I admit it — I don’t like saying the rosary as a public devotion (unless you are talking about a rosary for someone who has passed away) and we don’t say it regularly as a family. I don’t mind it so much if it happens before Mass since you can choose to participate or not, but I would feel very uncomfortable if it was expected at the beginning of a homeschooling field trip. I have heard from other people who have a hard time actually warming up to the Rosary at all — there are other devotions that they prefer. Before anyone thinks that there is something troubling my soul that prevents me from saying the Rosary, let me add that I do say it privately and I love the Divine Mercy Chaplet. We say the Chaplet as a family during Lent and I sometimes say it in the car when I am driving.Sorry to rant, but this is a topic that doesn’t get spoken about very often because most people think they are “bad” (bad moms, bad Catholics) for feeling the way you did.
I’m all for piety, but a rosary in the freezing cold when one is supposed to be going on hay rides and such?!?!?Yikes.Guess we’ll be in that handbasket to hell with y’all…🙂
Bwahahahahahaha, I can relate to that particular handbasket myself.Great photos!
Farms are WONDERFUL places and full of educational opportunities! 🙂 (OK, so yes, I am probably biased on that…)You show no lack of devotion or piety in your practical “a ROSARY?!” response. It’s not the time of year and a passel of anxious kids is not the setting – not there, anyway!
I am glad you mentioned the rosary thing. I frequently missed the rosary at the beginning of our homeschool groups. There is nothing more torturous than trying to say the rosary with a bazillion little kids squirming around, mom’s trying to hold it together, and the leader of each decade trying to be slower and more pious than the previous reciter. This does not do much for my spiritual life, I tell you.
<>It was freezing, but Jenny stripped off two layers. She was miserable, but she was miserable before taking off her sweater and long sleeved shirt anyway.<>what is it about this age that some days they’re just in constant misery and nothing can fix it???