Divine Mercy, the Annunciation, and a Possible Miracle

We made it to the 7:30 am TLM/EF Low Mass at St. Agnes for the first time since the fourth Sunday of Lent. We wimped out and opted for the 8:30am the day of the time change. I was out of town on Palm Sunday and went with my mom. And Easter Sunday we did the 8:30am again since the EF was the 10am orchestral Mass (which is beautiful, but way too long with four small children). So, on Divine Mercy Sunday we were back at our normal Mass time (and so were all of our favorite after Mass donut eating friends)!

The lectionary for the OF and the EF are different from each other on most Sundays, and as I heard both between the Blessed is She devotion and going to the EF Mass, I just had to share the first reading from the EF. It was so Divine Mercy appropriate, and so appropriate coming the day before the transferred Feast of the Annunciation:

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has borne witness to his Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne to his Son.

-1 John 4-10

The water and blood imagery bring to mind the Divine Mercy image, and then when you add the Spirit as a witness, it brings to mind the Annunciation.

We are getting some flurries here, and I hear it is snowing east of Minnesota, in places like Michigan and Buffalo, NY. (places where we have lived–my five week stay between NY and MN in MI count right?) 

Here is some snowy (or rainy) Annunciation Scripture for you:

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and return not thither but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my [W]ord be that goes forth from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

-Isaiah 55:10-11

So, take hope in that the snow is coming this cold spring day in order to bring forth seed and bread, and that Christ came and has and will accomplish His purpose.

The Divine Mercy weekend is especially meaningful for me in several ways. 11 years ago, just hours before Pope St. John Paul II passed away, on April 2, my grandmother passed away after a her second battle with cancer. And two years ago on Divine Mercy Sunday, I began to miscarry the baby that we named after Pope St. John Paul II.

But today I have some happy news to share. My father, whom I asked you to pray for, met with his doctor about his artery which was supposed to have been enlarged. Here is the background. A CT scan of this specific artery from after Dad’s surgery measured it to be a safe size. He had an ultrasound of it in March which measured it to be bigger than it should be, thus risking rupture. However, he had another CT scan last week (Easter Monday after we had all been praying for him) which showed the artery to not have enlarged at, all meaning that there is no concern about his artery. The doctor’s explanation was that the ultrasound was inaccurate, but we think that it is possible that there was a miracle. 

Either way we are thankful and praise God for Dad’s health. Thank you for your prayers for Dad.

Seven Quick Takes: Easter Week

1. Happy Easter! We had a lovely Triduum, not pushing our limits with four kids. M and G went to Holy Thursday. I made it out to the altar of repose at our territorial parish once they came home from St. Agnes. On Good Friday we all went to the afternoon Mass of the Presanctified (that is the traditional name for it, the Eucharist is already consecrated, hence “presanctified”). I had a wrestling match stood in back with T for most of it. Saturday we stayed home. It was a good idea all around. M and I like to do the 12 readings from the old, old Easter vigil on the Holy Saturdays that we don’t get to go. So we did that, and it was nice. We went to Sunday morning mass and then spent the day at the farm in Wisconsin with M’s aunt, uncle, and cousins. We had a lovely time there as usual.

2. Secondly, thank you all for your prayers for my dad and I a couple of weeks ago. Dad had another scan, and will be seeing his doctor next week to hear about his options. As for my concussion, I am going to be going to physical therapy for about a month to help me become more tolerant of visual stimulation (too much of which has been causing me to be lightheaded, dizzy, and nauseated).

3. Today did not turn out at all like I expected. We were planning on going to our home school co-op only to have the baby wake up sick. The poor little guy had to have two baths this morning from various effects of his illness and has been running a fever all day. Instead we stayed home, and did things like plant some seeds. I think everyone enjoyed it. We had four little starter sets from Easter baskets, but they came with so many seeds that we planted 7 more basil plants, and two strawberry plants from another starter kit. I am hoping the light from the AeroGarden will give our plants the help they need to get a head start on summer.

4. I got around to some things I have been wanting to do for awhile, like put the Easter grass away and organize this school supply cabinet. I have been meaning to organize it since September, but never got around to buying the paper organizing racks. So, these stacks of paper have been laying in a messy stack with other things scattered about. I do not have before pictures for you. At any rate, my dad had some extra office organizing supplies and brought them when he came to visit it. A sick day for baby and canceled outing was the perfect time to get started!

5. I meant to write in the afternoon, but the girls asked me to help them build their Lego pizzaria. This set was mine as a little girl. So, instead of writing I spent 45 minutes digging through Legos and building with my kids. I think it was worth it. And I have discovered that most Lego sets have directions online.

6. Spring is springing even though we were in the 30s today. I am thinking about buying seeds this weekend and planting cold crops outside soon. Our tulip bulbs are well on their way to flowering. And these daffodils are on their third spring and finally look established. In the past we have gotten a few straggler in May. It looks like we will have an abundance this year! I love daffodils!

7. We have been a little delayed in our indoor plant traditions this year, so instead of an Easter lily, we have an Easter Amaryllis…

We were also late in that we planted the Resurrection garden grass thing on Good Friday, so our grass is just starting to come in. I suppose it is a good thing Easter lasts 7 weeks–maybe this little lawn in symbolic in that the joy of Easter does not happen all at once, but we grow closer to God slowly over the Eastertide so that we are more spiritually ready to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

I am linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum. Head on over for more quick takes!

Seven Quick Takes for March

It has been a long crazy last couple of weeks here. A lot of things have happened, and I have had no time for blogging here! I thought I would sum it up in a few late quick takes, and join last Friday’s link up

1. First up: my dad. People ask me on occasion how my dad is doing since his emergency surgery after anaortic dissection two years ago. Since I only see him every couple of months it is easy for me to notice his steady improvement. It has been a long recovery, and there are some things that he will never recover from. His aorta did not heal as fully as the doctor hoped, and because of that he is not supposed to let his heart rate get to high. So my runner father is not allowed to run ever again. As you can imagine, this was very difficult for him. 

The most recent news on Dad is that one of his arteries (to which the dissection extended) did not fully heal and it is becoming enlarged. If it becomes too large and bursts, it will be fatal for him. In your charity please pray for my father’s artery to heal and for wisdom for the doctor on how to proceed to help prevent this from occurring. We have been praying to Jesus with a devotion to his right shoulder wound (the one he received while carrying the cross) for dad’s healing. So this Friday when we are remembering Christ’s Passion please say a prayer for Dad’s complete healing. 

2. Second: my fall. It has been five weeks since my tumble down the stairs, and I was pretty out of commission for about three weeks. I would do the bare minimum (home school, baby needs, and feeding people) and then lay down for ten minute stretches to rest my head. It became more and more evident throughout those weeks that I must have suffered from at least a moderate concussion. Even now (almost five weeks after the incident) I have a few lingering symptoms. I have an appointment with a concussion specialist tomorrow, so please pray for me and my complete healing. 

3. On to happier things! We had two birthdays in March in our home, and for M it was a particularly important one. With the help of awesome friends who did most of the food prep, I managed to throw him a surprise party in our house. He had no inkling of the fact until 90 minutes before party time when I asked him to do the taxes in his basement study. And he did not really know until he heard a whole lot of people hanging around upstairs. The party was a hit, and even the weather cooperated with a high in the 60s. We had cake and ice cream OUTSIDE in early MARCH in MINNESOTA. I am so glad to not have to sneak around planning a major event in our home without M to discuss it with. Though he claims that he is just going to let me do all the party planning from now on without him since it was a stress free planning for him. 

4. G had her 7th birthday, and I really cannot believe that I am the mother of a 7 year old. She is growing up way too fast. She is doing splendidly in first grade, is a loving big sister to the baby, and is really becoming independent. Her growing up really has taken me by surprise.

5. My parents came for a visit during the March birthday week, and they were able to help out with the craziness that has been this “spring” semester. I was able to leave the littlest kids at home for the dance classes, piano lessons, and our Little Flowers meeting. The girls had a great time with their grandparents around.  

6. The baby and I road tripped with my parents back to St. Louis so that I could help with my sister’s bridal shower. It was really weird being in St. Louis without the rest of my family, and I think the professor and the girls missed us a lot as well. Baby T was a good baby as usual, and made sure to revert to some of his bad sleep habits once we got there. He really likes his own bed and room! I had some good visiting with my parents and siblings, and helped my mom dress shop to be the mother-of-the-bride for her last time. My brother and I bonded over putting peanut butter on ice cream (he really has great taste). My sister (the one who is getting married) shared a room with the baby and I, and I am not sure how much she liked being woken up by him… But the shower was a success, and T and I flew home together without incident on an airplane full of businessmen. I amused myself thinking about how all of them were little active 9 month old babies once. 

7. We are all set to have a quiet Holy Week, with just our little family, making it to the liturgies that work best for us. After enjoying the spring flowers in St. Louis, we are having a slow, steady snow fall in Minnesota. I guess the warm weather we had in early March was too good to be true.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a blessed Triduum.

Seven Quick Takes: Saturday, July 25, 2014

 1. I have two medical things to discuss this week. The first has to do with my dad. You may remember about his emergency surgery back in January to repair his aortic dissection. Well, the surgery was a success and he is alive and getting better day by day. We learned yesterday after a CT scan that his aorta did not heal as well as the doctors would have liked, and they recommend that he not run at all ever again. This is a blow for him, especially since he has been looking forward to running again since his surgery. They do not think that naturally any further healing of the aorta will occur. His aorta is as healed as it is going to be, except by miraculous divine intervention. So, I again ask for prayers for Dad, that he be healed completely from his dissection and that he is able to be happy with his limited aortic ability should his complete healing never occur. We are so thankful to have him with us still, even if I am never able to run with him again. Thank you for your prayers. 
I can’t decide which shoe I like better…
2. In other medical news, I broke my little toe on the right this week. It is pretty lame to have a broken toe. This means no more running for me for 4-6 weeks and I have to wear a funny shoe and have a purplish toe. It happened when I was walking through a doorway and accidentally kicked the edge of the wall. It was like: step, kick, hop, hop, hop on the other foot, OW!!!!, tuck L back into bed, hobble back out to the couch, send G down to get M to get me ice, feeling nauseated, ow that still really hurts, maybe I should see the doctor for an xray, calling my awesome physical therapist sister to get her advice, calling the doctor, calling a friend for a ride so I don’t strain the possible break, seeing the doctor, getting the xray, maybe not broken, getting call from doctor… and yes, it was most definitely broken. A teeny tiny hairline fracture which disables me for a month. But there are lots of things to offer it up for these days, so the Catholic in me had no problem there…


3. We have a new little rabbit living under the shed. The girls have named him “Peter Rabbit.” He is pretty cute and looks cuddly. In my surplus of lettuce this week I donated some of the wilted, bug eaten lettuce it to the rabbits. Both rabbits chowed down on that stuff. It had a soporific effect on the rabbits (a la The Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter), and they went and took a nap.

Cottontail and Peter. Cute bunnies until they find a way into our garden. For now, we can watch the life of bunnies while we eat breakfast.

4. I organized the pantry today. Having this broken toe is limiting in some ways, but not enough to prevent me from reorganizing the pantry. It looks so nice and tidy, for now. I even threw a few stale things out. It was quite freeing. Now I must organize something else….

The bumper and crib sheet we have had forever. They kind of match the decor… and that wall is looking really bare…

5. I have been wanting to get a rug for F’s room since we moved into the house. It is the only bedroom I did not paint, which was fine since all the bedrooms had been repainted before the house went on the market. But it was stuck with these cream colored walls which matched perfectly to my rocking chair, making a very creamy, woody room when you had the crib, chair, and changing table all together. Slowly I changed things. I got some curtains of a pretty teal. F got a handmade quilt from her great grandmother which I threw over the rocking chair. Then I found the toy bins on clearance, which replaced the diaper boxes. And after looking out for the right rug for over a year, I found it. It was $18 (a back to school sale), and has all the right colors. Even F likes it. I am pretty happy with it. The only last thoughts I have for the room is maybe something more for the walls, and curtain ties instead of clothes pins…

That little door looks like it might lead to a secret passage for babies. It is actually a door to plumbing.

6. This bowl of fruit makes me really happy. 

We have kept our Easter candle out without the lilies since Pentecost and it looked so bare and plain. So, today I was inspired by fruit. The only problem is that by the end of the week, it will be an empty bowl…

7. M and I have decided to repaint the outside of the house. It is a stucco house, which normally does not need painting, but someone in the past painted it. This means we have to maintain the paint. Plus, the windows need re-caulking. So, we are doing it all on a whim we had last week. We do not normally do things like this so spontaneously, but it just made sense to do it now, especially since we have no little babies this summer. It is not like I can do much to help anyway (my toe), but at least I will be able to managed the kids easier without a tiny nursling. And while that kind of sounds like I might be pregnant, I am not. It just means, we would like to have a tiny new baby by next summer, but it is not happening yet.

That’s all folks! I am linking up with Carolyn, the guest host of Quick Takes, this week.

http://www.svellerella.com/7-quick-takes-friday-svellerella-edition/

Seven Quick Takes on Anniversaries and Fathers

1. It is not too late to write my quick takes! We had a busy, fun week. My parents came up for a visit, which is pretty incredible in itself considering that my dad just had a major surgery after the most catastrophic thing a body can do to itself (aortal dissection). Most people do not even make it into surgery, let alone out of it… We are so thankful that we have however many more months and years with him on Earth, and I will cherish every moment that I get with him.

2. Friday, the 13th was my parents 34th wedding anniversary. M took this lovely shot of them while I was following F (19 months) down the path and keeping her our of streets.

Dad is still tired a lot, and we wonder if he will ever have the same energy that he had before, but then I know that this recovery cannot be rushed.

3. This has definitely been a very trying year for my mom and dad. Dad has been looking for a regular position since he lost what was his dream job when the website he worked for got shut down. Then he had his surgery. My mother has been tirelessly taking care of his health needs, working her job as a nurse, and starting up her prayer ministry for priests. She is truly and amazing woman, and we are all blessed by her in our lives. I pray that God blesses their marriage abundantly in the next year and beyond, and that Dad finds a new dream job for his last years of working.

4. M and I took our anniversary date on Tuesday (READ: FREE BABYSITTING), even though our six year anniversary was not until yesterday. We went to a Russian restaurant in St. Paul, and discovered that dill is a major Russian spice. M got his favorite martini with horseradish infused vodka and I went for a girly coconut-citrus flavored one.

My chicken kiev came with this little crown and dill garnish.

These chocolate truffles and butterfly cookie were soooo worth the price.
“Susanna, put away your embarrassing phone!” Yep, everyone else had a smart one. Hey, look, the moon!

Afterwards, we headed over to the St. Paul Saints baseball game, and watched a crushing, come from behind defeat. It was a lot of fun, and we are planning on taking the kids with us to a day game later this summer. 

5. Our actual anniversary day, we celebrated by sleeping in until 7, letting my mom take the big kids to Mass while we ate a leisurely breakfast, doing chores. M cleaned out the garage and vacuumed out my van. We made a dinner of broiled kabobs (too rainy to grill) and the driest wine Trader Joe’s stocks.

6. Happy Father’s Day to my amazing husband, who does things like wash dishes and put kids down for naps, even though it is Father’s Day. He is even going to cook dinner on the grill tonight, during which we plan to leave him alone with his thoughts and his beer. Thank you dear for everything you do!

7. Last one, if you want to read something less academic by M, read him over on Public Discourse where he explains that “taking philosophy and theology as the foundation of our knowledge elevates and unifies scientific and humanistic inquiry.”

Seven Quick Takes: Saturday, June 7

1. Friday is not my day for writing quick takes. We had a play date in the morning, which involved 14 children of philosophers. It was pretty intense, and for awhile there was a mob of three 3 year old and three five year old girls doing whatever little girls do in mobs. At one point they were comparing mosquito bites.

2. Congratulations to my husband for getting another article accepted into a peer reviewed journal! This will go towards the four he is supposed to have before going up for tenure, and is his tenth in his professional career. For those of you not familiar with the field, journal articles are hard to get published and take months of research and writing. This is a Big Deal!

Not a black bear, but young brown bears that once lived in the Buffalo Zoo.

3. So, a black bear was fatally shot about a mile from our house early this morning. It is kind of crazy. I guess I should be watching out for bears when the kids play in the backyard? When we were closing on our house the seller’s realtor told us a bunch of stories about people who live in our “city”, and he claimed to have grown up with a bunch of the police force. If they are anything like him when it comes to fishing and hunting, then I can say that I am confidant that the West St. Paul police can hunt down any bear that comes into our neighborhood. These police are real Minnesotans!

4. Speaking of Minnesotans, when I was at the optometrist’s yesterday, I heard a saleslady and a customer discussing the weather:

Saleslady: “How is it out there?”
Customer: “Oh, it’s toasty.”
Saleslady: “Oh, that is great! Don’t you just love it!”
Customer: “Sure do!”

When you live in Minnesota, it is best to embrace all weather to the fullest.

5. And since we are on the topic of weather, I have been trying to decided which things are worse:

Bundling children in snowsuits or in swimsuits and sunscreen?
Grocery shopping in a blizzard or grocery shopping in pouring rain?
Staying inside with hot tea or bug bites?

6. I went to a lovely concert on Thursday night called Harmony in the Park with two lady friends. We left our children at home and had a lovely evening on a blanket drinking wine and eating cheese, strawberries, and chocolate. It was great, and M is so awesome that he was okay with me leaving at 6pm and taking care of dishes, the childrens’ baths, and bedtime for all three alone.

7. If you were wondering how my dad is doing these days, I can tell you that he is well enough to visit us for a week with my mom. They are driving up tomorrow from St. Louis (and hopefullly with some Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in a cooler). I am excited to see them. Please keep my father in your prayers, since he is still slowly recovering and has nerve damage in his left hand. Some good news is that he is now allowed to drive, which was an issue with the narcotics he had been on since his surgery.

Linking up once again with Jen at Conversion Diary!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/06/7-quick-takes-about-wearing-triceratops-hats-signing-kindles-and-standing-in-the-middle-of-times-square-wearing-an-epic-selfie-t-shirt.html

Seven Quick Takes: St. Louis, Louis Edition

1. It is Spring in St. Louis, where we are visiting my family. Everyday has gotten above 40, and the daffodils are beginning to bloom. There is absolutely no snow on the ground, and it is just lovely. We even had a thunder storm last night! I know that it is wishful thinking for me to hope for Spring in St. Paul when we get back, but next week there does not look sooo bad:

At least it is not single digits with a negative windchill. I could go for a little more sunshine, but then it is almost Spring there so precipitation is to be expected.

2. Dad Update: Our main reason for coming to St. Louis for Spring Break was because my parents could not make their annual March visit to us. Dad is still recovering from his emergency surgery which repaired an aortic dissection. He has some nerve damage, which they think was caused by the dissection itself, which is affecting his ability to use his hands, specifically his left hand. He is still experiencing a lot of pain, which really affects his ability to function. The thing about his surgery is that there is not a lot of precedence of people who have had the exact surgery and recovered from it, so it is all very open-ended as to when he is going to feel all the way healed, or if it will ever be complete. We can only pray, wait, and be thankful that my dad is still with us. He is having good days and worse days. Sometimes, all he is able to do is sleep for a whole day, and other days he goes for long walks. I am convinced more and more that being around happy little kids is the best medicine for him. 🙂 Please continue to keep him and our family in your prayers.

3. We had dinner guests yesterday, and after dessert we started talking about music. Then my parents started singing songs from their charismatic community days, and then Dad got up went to the piano and played a whole concert for us of all the songs he had written, many of them based on scripture. I suggested to him that he make a video that could go viral, and then he could become a famous musician. Who knows? But it was a lot of fun to hear all the songs he played when I was a child growing up.

Photo by yours truly.

4. We have been going all over St. Louis this visit, and it has been fun to see all the sites. We went to Mass near my elementary school, and showed the kids my school on the way home. We went down to the Arch, parked along the river front, and climbed the stairs. The kids were a little afraid that the Arch would fall over on them because the moving clouds in the sky made it look as if the Arch were moving. We did not go up in the Arch, because F is at that age where she does not last anywhere for very long. Instead we went into the Museum of Westward Expansion. The older two loved it, especially when they got to see the covered wagon “like Laura and Mary” rode in from the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  M took the kids to the free St. Louis Zoo alone, while my dad and I went to get haircuts. I think they had a lot of fun together, and everyone survived.

5. Today we went to the Art Museum and saw the Impressionist France exhibit. It was good, except I really wanted it to be all huge colorful paintings, and those were about a third of the exhibit. It is free on Fridays, so we only paid to reserve our tickets in advance. That turned out to be a good idea, since we would have had to wait an hour to get in if we had not done so. Our older kids really liked the paintings, but F fussed the whole time because she wanted to be let loose out of the sling. Though one man told M that he enjoyed looking at him and the girls more than he enjoyed the art! They also had some early French photography taken on negatives of glass, paper, and waxed paper. It is pretty cool how they were able to take the earliest images. Tonight we are going to get our last Ted Drewes frozen custard until our next visit. I am pretty sure they do not open early enough for us to get some on our way out of town.

6. It is fortunate that the Cardinals are opening the season Monday in Cincinnati and not at home. If they were, it would be a huge sacrifice for me to leave so close to opening day. As it is, I will be able to tear myself away, and M will not have to cancel class next week for my love of baseball. Dad and I once went to a home opener when I was in high school. It was on Easter Monday that year, and we had a lot of fun. St. Louis has such a rich baseball tradition, that I am glad I was raised in. It is almost as cool as being raised Catholic. 😉 I got a chance to see the new “Ballpark Village” when we were leaving downtown after visiting the Arch. It looks pretty nice, I wonder how it will help downtown in the off season.

7. And last of all, we had another basement water issue a couple of weeks ago when the snow started to melt. Then we realized that there is a drainage system in place on our back patio to prevent such a problem which was covered in snow still. We spent a whole day fixing the problem, and knew exactly what to do to get the basement dry quickly. A friend mentioned something that their realtor told them: “There are two kinds of basements: those that leak and those that will.” Oh, home ownership…

Head on over to Jen’s Conversion Diary to read more Quick Takes!

Seven Quick Takes Friday, February 28

1. In your charity, please continue to remember my dad in your prayers. His recovery from surgery is still slow going. Specifically, he is having trouble with nerve damage in his left arm from his surgery. This is particularly difficult for him since he is left-handed, and playing the piano and guitar with his hands is a major part of his life. Please pray for complete nerve healing for him. Also, please pray that he has more of an appetite and is less fatigued. We are so thankful that he was able to have his life saving surgery, that a full recovery should happen, and for everyone’s prayers and material support.

2. One encouraging part of dad’s recovery is that he is allowed to travel. I think he is having a hard time resisting visiting his first grandson that was born to my sister earlier this month. I am excited to have a nephew; now I can peruse the clearance racks for cute boy clothes! After six granddaughters, my parents have a grandson. My brother-in-law probably thinks he is all that for having the first boy, but he is just giving us a chance to pull ahead in the girl department. I think we will try for 10 girls and then maybe have a boy.

3. I still can’t believe that people settled Minnesota. What were they thinking? I mean what kind of restriction is this?

A St. Paul winter parking ban will go into effect starting Saturday.
The city says snowbanks have grown so large that there’s not enough room for emergency vehicles to squeeze down some of the streets.

I am pretty sure that this is God telling us to all move to the South. It is time for a mass migration… We can bring our jobs, homes, and businesses with us. Let us just all move to the same place…

4. Look at our poor snowmen. They are going on 2 months and 3 months:

It is so cold, I feel a little bit sorry for them.

We went out when it was 2°F this morning to a friend’s house, and when we left the house around 1pm it was a balmy 13°F. What a difference! My nose was ice crystal free and I did not care if the one year old took her gloves off!

5. I was making pancakes for the kids on Tuesday for lunch, and M came home after his only class of the day to eat lunch and work from home the rest of the day. G and L were begging for “Nickey Mouse” pancakes with a round head and ears and chocolate chip facial features. M then requested Socrates smoking a pipe while riding on a dolphin. I gave it my best shot:

You see, since he is smoking,
that is a cloud of smoke off the side of his head…

6. Dolphins in our home are often called “dolphinium,” from the brilliant Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Little Pig Robinson. Our favorite passage:

After another hand, two sailors left the cabin and went on deck. They noticed something having the appearance of a large black beetle in the distance. One of them said it was an enormous cochroach, swimming with it’s hind legs. The other said it was a dolphinium. They disputed, rather loudly. Captian Barnabas, who had had a hand with no trumps at all after the cook dealing–Captain Barnabas came on deck and said:
“Bring me my telescope.”
The telescope had disappearedd; likewise the shoes, the sealing-wax, the compass, the potato pot, the straw hat, the hammer, the nails, the bucket, the screwdriver, and the armchair.
“Take the jolly boat and see what it is,” ordered Captian Butcher.
“All jolly fine, but suppose it is a dolphinium?” said the mate mutinously.

Go get the copy from your library today to find out more about the pig from the song “The Owl and Pussy Cat.”

7. Finally, home schooling, even preschool has been a bit of an adventure with a non-morning napping, teething one year old. She wants to get into everything, and when I strap her in she fusses until I let her have the crayons. Any tips for entertaining pre-rational children while trying to instruct older ones? I know I have home schooling readers… some cousin-in-laws perhaps?

There are worse things she could be doing…

Head on over to Jen’s Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes! Also, a bunch of bloggers linked up with her to post everyday this week. I could not commit this time around since I spent a bunch of time writing for Truth and Charity this week, but there are some pretty great bloggers posting out there!