Silly me. I thought that money we donate at church would be used by Catholic organizations to help the needy and disadvantaged.
Note to self: collections slated for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) should be avoided.
If I want to donate money to ACORN, I will donate money to ACORN. If I don’t want to donate money to ACORN, then I can’t donate to the CCHD either.
What other non-Catholic organizations are getting my money?
Sunday to-do list
I think I’ll take care of that last one right now.
Katie and Peter were the only ones to use the same costumes for Halloween that they used for the All Saints party.
Fritz was Indiana Jones (as were about 1 in 10 other boys).
Jenny went as an ice skater. Do not confuse her with a ballerina just because she had to wear shoes to get around!
I managed to get a picture of Mary before she fussed her way out of her dragon/dinosaur costume. Peter wore this last year. I made it and a green one for my oldest boys many years ago.
Billy went as The Scarecrow. Not Dorothy’s friend…
…rather, Batman’s enemy.
And Peter passed out after I got him in his PJs, but before I got him washed up and with brushed teeth. No mother of the year awards here, I’m afraid.And can anybody tell me why the company that manufactures Mary Janes (the candy) is still in business? And why, oh why, do people hand them out? Nostalgia? Sadism?
It’s time to wean from the caffeine.
I hope to have my coffee down to a 50-50 split by the end of the month.
Perhaps I ought to add “take a daily nap” to my resolution?
What is a New Month’s Resolution? Every month I look at where I need to focus my attention. Perhaps I’ve been procrastinating on certain chores. Perhaps I need to spend some extra time with one or more of the kids. Perhaps I’d like to try a new habit. New Month’s Resolutions are not grandiose plans to lose ten pounds or declutter the entire house or give up smoking (of course, I don’t smoke, but if I did, this would not be the venue in which I would give it up). New Month’s resolutions are short-term commitments; they are easily attained goals; they focus on what is needed right now, instead of what is best for a lifetime.
Do you have a new month’s resolution?
A middle school in New Jersey allowed the students to dress up yesterday. One boy dressed as Jesus. He got sent home.
You know, serious academics were going on that day. The regular repertoire of witches, ghouls, vampires, ninjas, Indiana Joneses, hippies, Grim Reapers and Sweeny Todds were not in the least bit distracting from the strict regime of core subjects. And the school’s Halloween party was also not in the least bit distracting from school work. The “games” were actually spelling bees, and geography bees and history Jeopardy and pin-the-latin-root-in-the-derivative-box.
But Jesus was a disruption.
Do you think anyone dressed as the Devil?
I think Hell Month is just about ended. It was a doozy.
Bill drove himself to work today, and managed just fine. I will no longer need to take him to and from physical therapy three mornings a week.
The boys’ last fencing class was today, and the academy is not continuing their weekday, morning lessons. They begin their next session on Saturday at noon (and thank goodness, they will let Billy take the next level even though he is not yet 9). So, Saturdays are a bit crammed, but Thursdays are not. And Bill can drive (Praise the Lord, all you lands).
Tomorrow, Fritz should be mostly finished with Week 8, and the other kids will complete Week 7. We are 2 weeks off from where I planned to be, but I have to be happy with this. My van is really not a good classroom, and the kids have worked hard under bad conditions.
Right now, the house is mostly clean and tidy, and the classroom no longer looks like the enemy has targeted it with a propaganda leaflet drop. The dishes are almost done. Two out of three dirty clothes hampers are empty, and what is clean and dry is folded. The washer and the dryer are busy with more.
Even a big stressor of the month – filling the heating oil tank (or rather paying for the filling of the heating oil tank) miraculously resolved itself this morning when I reconciled my checking account and realized I hadn’t entered one of Bill’s travel reimbursements. The travel voucher covered the cost of the oil with some to spare.
Which is why I called Bill and suggested we finally “pay” the kids for their earned kids’ meals at whatever fast food joint is between here and his work. We haven’t eaten out in months, I think, (and I count take out as eating out), and the kids had been earning points to get their own meal with their own soda and their own toy for some time. I’m not sure what Bill and I will have, but as long as it’s not cooked by me, I’ll be happy.
Right now, life looks good.
My children have a lot of games they like to play in the car.
First, there is the “punch buggy” game. I had never heard of this until I met my husband, and by then I was too old to find it amusing. My husband thinks it’s a fine game, and he taught it to the kids.
Next, they added the license plate game. Shout out the state of any non-Virginia license plate you see. Today they had to hash out the rules over the D.C. plates they see. “It’s not a state,” argued one boy. “And we live in the D.C. area,” argued the other. So, I guess D.C. plates are out.
The newest game is vehicle identification. Not normal cars, of course, but who can be the first to spot the other things on the roads?
My favorite game is the one using Obama campaign signs for target practice with their imaginary guns and other weapons. I don’t know where they come up with this stuff.
They play ALL these games at the same time. I don’t know if they keep score or not. So, on the way home this morning from Bill’s office, this is what I heard:
“Truck!”
“Bus!”
“Maryland!”
“Truck! Taxi! Truck!”
“Maryland”
“Truck!”
“Punch buggy green!”
“Truck!”
“Truck!”
“Ambulance!”
“Fire fighters!” {Hail Mary, full of grace…}
“Pennsylvania!”
“Bus!”
“Taxi!”
“Taxi!”
“I already called that one.
“The yellow one?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Bus!”
Then as we approach the median whose grass is obscured by the two dozen blue signs planted in it…
“Everybody! Get ready to fire!” (That was Katie.)
And when we were close enough, the van erupted in a cacaphony of noises which my scant skills in onomatopoeia cannot do justice.
The header is something I just threw together to make it match, but I really like my new background. So, click over from your feed reader and leave me a nice comment. I did use the tutorial from The Cutest Blog on the Block, but I did all the work myself. And I’ve sprained my shoulder patting myself on the back.
Bill is learning to walk again. He’s about on par with Mary: they do just fine if they’re holding on to something else.
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Mary inches along on tippy-toe with her eyes right about at the level of the desk, her little fingers reaching out for the interesting looking objects she espies: cell phone, scotch tape, bobbin, coffee mug (full and hot), magnets, pens, Magnificat.
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We have these dolphin bath toys. Mary can successfully place a dolphin inside the floating ring. I’m impressed with her skill. Best yet, she’s impressed with her skill. She cackles and claps to praise herself.
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Mommy’s lap belongs to Mary. Peter is not welcome to share Mommy’s lap. She pushes at him and fusses if he dares snuggle with her mommy. It was not long ago that she smiled and happily curled up at my breast with her body on Petey’s legs and her arm patting his as we all cuddled together.
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I gave Mary some scrambled eggs for the first time the other day. “Good?” I asked her, and she smiled and clapped in response after every bite. My older boys had jarred baby food. Katie had homemade baby food. The last three have gone pretty much straight to table food. They have been my best eaters so far, although for some reason my three year olds develop weird food preferences. Peter has suddenly stopped eating tomato-based sauces (except ketchup, of course). The pasta must be plain, and he’ll only eat the crust of the pizza. Jenny, now 5, is slowly coming out of her own food issues. So, I will enjoy this baby who loves everything I put in front of her knowing that in a year or so, she will throw a fit if I cut her pancakes the wrong way, and a year after that, she’ll decide that she doesn’t “do” pancakes.
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Mary has never been a fan of the car, and as she’s gotten older, things haven’t improved. I’m considering going to the Saturday Vigil Mass just so that one day a week, I don’t (Mary doesn’t) have to get in the car. It’s tough being the baby in an active family.
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Mary likes soda cans. We don’t normally have them, but there were leftovers from our Oktoberfest. Last night, she pointed to the one next to Bill and made her “gimme” noises. Bill said no, and she gave him a look of shock: No? What do you mean, no? I’m sorry, I can’t process that. I always get what I want. I’m the baby!
She’s getting big.
There’s a Bill Cosby routine about dads teaching their sons football. Working with them for years, practicing the throwing and the catching. Spending hours in the cold to watch them play. The boys grow up and get on their college teams. They make a big catch on a nationally televised show, and with the camera in their face, what do they say to the world?
“Hi, Mom!”
This is payback, of course. Moms are the ones with the swollen bellies and bulging veins. Three months of vomiting, perhaps a respite, then 4 months of sciatica. Hours of labor, the pain of childbirth. Then months of leaking and sore breasts. Mounds of diapers and hundreds of wiped bottoms. And inevitably, what is a baby’s first word?
“Dada!”
Mary has been saying Dada for quite some time. I guess she sort of says Muh for me, but I refuse to accept that as a word. It’s just babble. I mean, Muh? What is Muh?
But she definitely has a second “word” now. She lifts her shirt, tickles her tummy and says, “tikki!”
It’s how I fill my days: tickling babies and laughing when they tickle themselves.
Reit This Way 