Category: Family

Dad’s Emergency Surgery

“It is the most catastrophic thing your body can do to itself,” the surgeon said to my mother as he explained to her the surgery that my father was about to undergo.

Dad and F two weeks before his aortic dissection.

The Saturday had started off normal enough. Mom had spent the day with friends at some sort of prayer event and Dad had been getting ready for his composers forum and decided to go for a run up around the park half a mile from their house.

Mom in St. Louis, MO called me around 5:15 pm as I was attempting to get dinner started in St. Paul, MN. She had a question about my tomato sauce recipe, and I was making my mother-in-law’s beef stroganoff. We got off the phone and five minutes later my brother called me. It was strange to get a call from my brother P. He prefers to talk in person, and we had just been in St. Louis ten days before. I answered the phone, “Susanna, Mom just got a call from Dad’s friend Sam. He was running at W park and had some chest pain and is at Sam’s house who lives right by the park. The paramedics are coming. Is M with you?” I got off the phone and started praying. M came into the kitchen and I told him. We hugged and gathered the girls and said a prayer. I then got dinner ready, because the kids still had to be fed. My mom called to tell me that Dad had passed out right when she got there, but woke up for the paramedics. They took him by ambulance to the hospital. My brother called to say that he was driving my mom, and that my sister S was with them.  I got dinner in the oven and was about to shower when P called and said that they were doing a CT scan focusing on the area around my dad’s heart. In the shower, alone with my thoughts, it hit me. I was not ready to say goodbye to my dad; I am not sure if anyone ever is ready to do it. I know that one day, one of us will die, but it was not meant to be this week. I longed to talk to him again, to see him play with love his grandchildren. I wanted my children to have him. I prayed that he would live.

I found out later that the ER doctor heard about Dad’s symptoms of the chest pain shooting from his heart to his head, his fainting, and then his intense pain in his right leg, and figured immediately that it was an aortic dissection. They had trouble getting an IV into Dad before his CT scan, because he was writhing in pain from his leg. When the scan was over (about an hour after my brother’s first call), I received another call. Dad was going to have emergency surgery. His aorta had dissected ascending from his heart all the way descending to his right leg. If they did not do the surgery, he would die. The surgeon explained in detail to my mom, my brother, and my sister what was going to happen in surgery. He described all of the risks and that there were certain things that could have happened in Dad’s aorta which would make the repairing surgery impossible.

P later told me that Mom recited her wedding vows to Dad as he was wheeled toward surgery.

At home in St. Paul, M and I tried to eat dinner. The kids felt our level of anxiety and struggled through dinner as well. We asked friends and family for prayers and went through the motions to get our kids to bed. My head was in a fog of anxiety and helplessness. I prayed with all my heart that everything would turn out okay. We finally got the kids to bed, and went through the motions of cleaning up after dinner. I was not sure what to do, if we should go to St. Louis or not even if Dad survived the surgery. We decided to wait to see what happened with the surgery.

Shortly before 11 pm, my brother told me that Dad’s bypass had been complete and that the next step was to repair the aorta. They had to cut away the damaged tissue and replace it with a mesh-like piece of plastic, which would then allow new aortal tissue to grow over it an create a new aorta vessel over the plastic graft. It is an incredible thing that they are able to do. To do the repair, they removed all of my dad’s blood and reduced his body temperature so that he was in a sort of stasis. The repair was achieved in 20 minutes and they raised his temperature and returned his blood to his body.

But at 11 pm that Saturday night, we did not know if there was enough healthy tissue for the graft to be sewn on to. At the hospital my Mom sat with my brother, my sister, and all six of my dad’s siblings and their spouses. That is a lot of people! M and I went to bed for a fitful night of sleep. I could not get my memories of running with my dad around W park out of my head. I was never a runner until college, and so the majority of my runs at that park were with my dad during visits to home.

I was woken up at 3:50 am by a hungry one year old, I stumbled to her room to resettled her. I checked my phone out of habit and saw that I had missed a call from my brother and had this text from him: “He’s out. Now in the ICU. Surgery went well. Now it’s time to recover. He’s not completely out of the woods, but things are looking up.” I told M, and then called to get more details. Then again I could not go back to sleep. It was Sunday morning, and Dad was supposed to be sedated until Monday afternoon. I was not sure if we should go to St. Louis or not. My sister MC was already there with her family; she had driven 3 hours the night before and was 37 weeks pregnant.

The night finally ended, and we got up to go to 7:30 am Mass. I then decided that I really wanted to be in St. Louis; my heart wanted to be there with my family and with Dad. M wanted to go also. Dad would want us to follow our hearts, so we decided to go. I prayed for him through all of Mass, and afterwards our pastor came by our seats and we told him the situation and he said that he would pray. We then drove home, and I called my mom to let her know that we were coming.

We started packing at 8:30 am and were all in the car, having eaten lunch, and leaving at 12:30 pm. The first two hours of the drive were dreadful, we could not think of anything but our anxiety for my dad. There was concern that he would had possibly lost too much oxygen to his organs before his surgery or that the cooling process and blood removal may not have left him fully himself. I tried not to call since I knew that dad was receiving the Anointing of the Sick.

Finally my mom called around 2:30 pm. Dad had woken up! He was not supposed to yet, but at 8:15 am, the nurses were moving him and he started to wake. They let him wake up. One of the nurses said that she had never seen anything like his recovery that first day after his surgery. M and I had lifted spirits after that phone call. Dad was recovering so well so quickly. We made it St. Louis in 9 hours. We only stopped twice, and had what my Grandpa T calls an “uneventful trip”.

My sisters had made our room ready for us, and we quickly got the kids to bed. I then went to see Dad. I arrived and he was glad to see me. He told me a little bit of what he remembered had happened, but he was tired and I did not want him to exert himself. He also told a few silly jokes, and I knew that he was doing better and better.

The rest of our visit was so beautiful. The six cousins spent hours playing together, and my siblings and I supported Mom as best we could and were just together. It was not an easy visit, but it was important. Everytime we saw Dad, he told me how glad he was that we had come, and when we left on Thursday morning, it was the hardest thing. I just wanted to be near my dad, and see him improve with my own eyes.

He is doing so much better now, and should be leaving the ICU today and moving to telemetry. There are so many blessings that will come out of all of this, and the main one is that my dad is still alive on Earth. I pray that we have many more years with him, to grow in holiness and love.

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, January 17

1. I had to put down a novel, The Nether World by George Gissing, to write these today. It is either a sign that it is a good book or I have lost the habit of writing since we traveled for three weeks. Or maybe both. I have had several topics bouncing around my head this week and all I have to show for it is that I am 82 pages into a new novel, which is better I suppose than perusing the internet for all of naptimes. Being married to M means that he thinks it is a productive naptime when I sit and read for an hour or so, which is not a problem in my book. I will try to get back into writing in the next week. Another reason I put off writing these is that we did not really do much interesting this week, besides playdate, our church moms’ group, and the library. It was a pretty laid back week. Oh, and I reorganized the kids preschool things moving them from the front closet back to their permanent home in the basement. See, these are the kind of quick takes I am writing for you all this week. Not very interesting.

2. Have you heard of the new Spencer Trappist Ale? While they claim it is named for the town the monks live in, I am sure they also had our family in mind. I hope to try the genuine trappist beer someday; maybe someone will ship it to Minnesota.

3. L (3) has a fever today and I am really hoping that it is not the flu. It would be pretty annoying to have us all get sick, but then I could have reasons to stay inside and at home and not feel guilty not seeing anybody. Please pray for our health, because it would be much more fun to be able to go places. 🙂

4. Sunday it was 39°F out and I took the big girls outside and we reconstructed the old snowman and made him a snowwoman. I am pretty sure that he is a few inches shorter than he was originally. They also took advantage of the warmer temperatures to go sledding with M. They loved it. I think next time we will all have to go.

5. I am really thankful that we invested in a treadmill back in October. I have been using it a lot, and because it is way to cold to exercise outside. I might actually get back to my pre-baby weight. I have managed to after each baby and was giving up on this time since it has been over a year. I guess it just gets harder as one gets older? I mean I am closer to thirty than twenty…

6. M and I spent most of an evening the other night sitting and talking like we used to do back in college. When we lived on campus we would meet up in the courtyard between our dormitories in the evening and pray Night Prayer and then talk for awhile. When we were both off campus, we would eat dinner at one of our houses, do homework, and then sit and talk for awhile until M drove me home or he left for his house. Since we’ve had kids, we usually plan on doing things like reading or watching shows or movies, rarely do we sit and just talk when the kids are in bed. (We talk a lot throughout a day, but evenings are usually for relaxing.) What inspired it was the talk our pastor Fr. M gave at the moms’ group, when he asked about the first dates each woman had had with her husband. Later M and I reminisced about our “first dates” which consisted of walking together all over the campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville, and then the second time we dated all over the little town of Gaming, Austria. Even now walks alone together, especially in the snow, remind us of our early relationship.

7. My friend C gave the girls this Advent calendar published by Magnificat. The kids really like it, and what is so great about it that it has a little window to open on Candlemas Day (The Presentation of Our Lord) February 2, which is the Traditional end of the Christmas season. So, our tree is still up as well as the lights I put up in our nook. If you need a little bit more of Christmas or the Season after Epiphany, come on over. 🙂

Linking on up with the lovely host of Seven Quick Takes Jen the Executive Vice President of Blogging at ConversionDiary.com.

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, January 10

1. Merry Christmas (it is still the Season After Epiphany!) and Happy New Year! I took a little vacation from my blog to spend nearly three weeks traveling with M and the kids to visit almost every relative we could and a number of friends. Of four large family gatherings in three different states, we only missed one and that could not be helped. As Road Trip Pros, we clocked 2200 miles on our van going from Minnesota, through Wisconsin, Indiana, stopping in Michigan, stopping in Ohio, going back through Indiana, stopping in Illinois, stopping in Missouri, and then headed back up North through Iowa and back into Minnesota! It was a lot of fun, and we had great times with family.

2. The house survived our prolonged absence without any major problems, without any problems that we can tell. Even the Polar Vortex left our home unscathed. Turning off the water and the hot water heater, and praying continually everyday that nothing would go wrong or flood seems to have worked out for us this time. We would not like to have another Saga of the Leaky Pipe.

3. Our good old snowman still stands in the front yard. I have never had a snowman this old! I will have to post a picture of him when I take a new one.

The day he was made. Now he is five weeks old!

4. The kids had today what we call “the grandparent effect”, which occurs after they have been visiting with other adults who give them more attention than they normally get at home. L (3) complained all day that she wanted to go on another trip, and G (4.5) got so cranky that she took a nap (which happens for her every 60 days or so). F (1) could not handle life today, but I think that was due to teething and having a cold. We will adjust back into normal life soon.

5. When we were in St. Louis, we were reminded of how they deal with snow outside of Minnesota (and Buffalo, NY): CLOSE EVERYTHING! They had 8-12 inches on a Sunday, and then a high of 5 the next day. Everything was closed, all the schools and many businesses. We stayed inside, because, really who likes to be in a -15 windchill? My mom braved the great outdoors to pick up our favorite St. Louis Style pizza. They opened at 4pm for pickup only, and we were so relieved! We almost went all the way to St. Louis without our favorite pizza! We made a Ted Drewes Frozen Custard run the night before the storm, and my dad stocked up on their quart sizes while everyone else was buying milk and bread.

6. Now that we are past the holiday business, I am going to start a Winter deep clean/organization. There are things we moved that we never unpacked and things that got brought up from the basement that never were put back, plus we have a new excess of toys. I am going to make it through the Winter by busying myself inside with lots of things to do. Starting next week I am going to make my lists and get into organization mode.

7. I am not sure what else to say tonight, since I am being waited for by my husband. We are going to rewatch a few Sherlocks before PBS airs the new season in 11 days. If you want to catch up, PBS has the old shows available for watching until January 19.

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary.

The Power of Memories

Twice a year my family would pack up for a week and drive nine hours from St. Louis to the Cleveland to visit my mom’s parents. We felt very close to them despite our infrequent visits. Visiting their home was a very special part of our childhood, as my parents relaxed for a week and my siblings and I played all the old board games with each other and with our “Ohio cousins”.

As I go back there as an adult, I bring my husband and my own children, and sleep in the same bedroom, watch my children play with the same toys, and talk to Grandma in the same kitchen. Being able to visit the home my mother grew up in year after year means so much to me since it gives me a taste of my mother’s childhood and now my own.

Now I live nine hours from my parents house and we visit about twice a year. My children are old enough to remember the house, the toys, and the visits here. It is so special for them, to pack up and arrive at the home of their loving grandparents and often an aunt or uncle. The house has not changed much since I left for college, and my children experience it as the same every time we come. They create memories with each other, with us, and with their grandparents, aunts, and uncle.

For me, it is a bit surreal only “going home” twice a year. I have memories of growing up in every part of every room, that come back to me every visit.. We moved in when I was one year old (about the age of my youngest) and my dad spent several years building a bedroom in the basement. That became “the girls’ room”, and since it is so large it now accommodates us when we visit. When I go in the room now, and see my daughter sleeping in my old part of the room, and remember being a little girl here, it brings a sense of unity to my life.

Moving far away from home to a different state in my own house is so strange for me sometimes, and coming home brings my life together. It all makes sense. I remember the blessed childhood I had, in a beautiful, loving family.  When I am at home, I am with myself as a baby, a child, and a teenager. I remember myself when I am there.

God’s relationship with us is outside of time. He knows our whole life. But we live in time, and relate to him as temporal beings. Our memories help us to understand our lives as a unity.  Everything we have experienced is a part of us, who we are now, and who we will be at the end of our lives. Coming home helps me to understand myself as I was before I moved away. I see more of the progression of my life. Maybe it is not ideal to live hundreds of miles away from where I grew up, but I am blessed that I am able to visit my childhood home and to see the unity in my life.

When we returned this past autumn to Buffalo, NY where M and I spent the first four years of our marriage and where our first two children were born, I once again experienced the power of my memories. I had been trying to make sense of my longing for the place and people we had left behind, and returning helped me find closure in our moving away. My memories there are part of my life and who I am.

On our long car trips, we have been listening to the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be living so close to family as the Ingalls did in Wisconsin and then pick up and move to Oklahoma, knowing that they would probably never see their family again. I imagine that writing the story of her life, even if it is slightly fictionalized was an attempt at finding unity in a life so interrupted by moving. Her life was held together by her memories

The Holy Family spent a number of years traveling, before they settled down back in Nazareth, so I often think of Our Lady in a strange land with the only continuity of life being that of her family. We are told that after the shepherds visit to the Infant Jesus she “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Our memories are something to ponder in our hearts, especially the ones that reveal God’s love to us. Remembering our past, and pondering it in our hearts is a way to understand and know ourselves as God knows us. Memories are part of who we are.

Originally at Truth and Charity…

There is Nothing Wrong with Weddings or Baby Showers

Photo by our lovely photographer, Jen Pagano.

I came across this article today. The author, Valerie Anderson, has an interesting point that marriage is more important than weddings and raising a child is more important than having a huge party with expensive gifts, which she makes at the end of the article. The rest of the article she spends complaining about the thousands of dollars she spent on being in seven weddings, only two of which the couple are still married. Then she talks about how people throw huge baby showers and emphasize having a baby, instead of graduation from school or a promotion. I agree with her that way too much money is spent on unnecessary things, but I disagree with the idea that the celebrations are a problem.

I was married right out of college, and my husband and I had very little in savings. We asked out parents to help us fund our wedding. Between both sides of the family we had a budget of $8000 (Anderson spent $15,000 on a wedding reception for 125 people). We had nearly 200 guests (we both have large extended families) and the $8000 covered everything: the church, the hall, the musicians, our photographer and printed pictures, the caterer, the two-buck chuck we served to drink, my $99 clearance rack dress, the tux rental, the flowers, and more. We did everything for a little as possible and still worked to make it nice. We used my parents minivan instead of a limo. I picked a reasonably priced dress for the bridesmaids, and my husband and I picked the lowest tux we could find for the groomsmen. Our friend guests carpooled and roomed together, saving as much money as they could. It was simple, it was maybe a little bit cheap, but I think that it was a beautiful and wonderful day for everyone who came.

For me, my wedding was not about “being a princess,” it was about entering into the Sacrament of Matrimony with my dearest love and best friend. It was about starting a life together, and hoping for children. It was about helping each other become saints. If that is not something to have a huge celebration for, I am not sure what is. We wanted our family and friends to celebrate with us, to pray for us, and to know that we wanted to share our life with them. That is what a wedding is about. Further, since we were fresh out of college, the wedding and the bridal showers provided us with the necessary material foundation for our life together. If it were not for my parent’s generosity, we would have slept on a $99 futon for many years before we bought a mattress for ourselves. A wedding celebration is the community’s way of supporting a young couple and helping them start their life together, and the great feast is the couple’s and their parents’ way of thanking everyone for their support. It is all very beautiful, if that is the way it is approached. As a potential bride, I was very skeptical of the over-commercialization of the wedding “industry”, and I think my husband and I navigated it very well for a beautiful and affordable celebration.

Six months after my wedding, my family threw me a baby shower. We were bringing a new human into the world, and that is something to celebrate! A new human life to add to the perfection of the universe! It is a bit hard for a post-partum mother to have a huge party right after delivery, so during pregnancy when the baby is nicely cared for in the womb is a great time. Plus, while there are a lot of unnecessary baby items in the world, new parents really do appreciate the support of friends and family in purchasing all the necessities of baby care. One of my showers was a cloth diaper shower. My third baby is wearing those very same diapers I received as a shower gift three years ago. That shower was not a waste. And, while I did not receive gifts for getting a job after college (which I left to be a mom) or throw a huge party when a blog post gets lots of hits, I am pretty sure that these things are not as major as the existence of a new human being.

The new life of a human has the same value, even when the mom is a teen mom. She might even need more support and aid than a married mom does. This paragraph from the article is probably the worst:

“I’ve been to a handful of these showers, and the unmistakable fact is that the guest list is mostly other teenage girls, all cooing and fawning over their corpulent friend or cousin, shrieking excitedly as they present her with the beautiful bassinet that they all pitched in for, ignoring the fact that the endeavor she is embarking on will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and stunt her career opportunities for the rest of her life, not to mention the devastating impact on her social life.”

Where are the adults in the life of the teenage girl, who needs their help more than ever? It is a great good that she is having a baby, even though it will “have devastating impact on her social life.” And there is nothing wrong with her friends supporting her in this; I would rather that than them take her to a clinic to have her child murdered. I am not sure really how this complaint about teenage baby showers fits into the marriage article to begin with, but clearly Anderson is seeing children as a burden and not a blessing.  I think the movie Juno, where she gives her baby up for adoption, is a great example of how to act in the case of a teenage pregnancy, but, for those who are able, keeping and raising the child is beautiful as well.

I think that the complaint that Anderson makes should be about the over-commericalization of weddings and baby showers, not the things in themselves, but then that is easy for me to grasp since the value of thrift has been instilled in me my whole life.

A Monday Resolution

I can’t believe this month is flying by so quickly. We are almost to Thanksgiving, and then Advent begins. I had thoughts about doing Christmas gift preparation before Thanksgiving to make Advent more prayerful, but I am still planning what meals to cook this week and trying to keep up on keeping house. I just feel like I am way behind on everything, but honestly almosy 10 minutes of every waking hour I am spending on the internet. That is over two hours a day I could be spending on something else. I need to figure out how to balance using the internet in a healthy, good way, as opposed to having it hinder my daily life.

I need to start with some major cutting back. I think social media and email need to be off-limits for me between 8:30am and 8pm. These are the hours I get the most done and spend the most time with the kids. I will make one exception to that, and that will be for blogging and blog sharing. So there’s that…

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, Nov. 8

1. With the basement finished (my post with pictures is here), I am not sure what else to look forward to, but then I have nothing to complain about either. I guess we can start living in our home unhindered by workmen, their schedules, and daytime drilling and hammering. I want to talk about a few things besides the basement and all of that.

2. M went to a philosophy conference last weekend, and there saw a lot of colleagues that he knows from graduate school, previous conferences, and even former professors. He saw one of my favorite philosophy professors from my undergraduate studies who asked about me and said that he remembered me fondly from being in his classes. That really made my day. For some reason I am always a bit surprised when people, who are not my closest friends and relatives, remember me or are even interested in how I am doing. I just don’t really think of myself a a particularly memorable person. I am thankful to this professor for the beginnings of my formation in more serious, intellectual thought. While I am not doing it professionally, I do enjoy it an aside to the rest of my life.

3. I am also feeling thankful to my mother who came and stayed with us for eight days to help me with the kids while M was away (he was only gone two nights) and celebrate F’s birthday. It is always nice to have house guests who help so much with dishes and cooking that they make it easier to run the house. My father was able to fit a visit in between his church music obligations, and it was great to see him. He took some beautiful shots of our family and of the baby, so if you are on our Christmas card list or a Facebook friend, you will get to see them!

4. After a week of having my mom around at lunch time, I went to make lunch for the kids and had no motivation to do so, especially because they were playing happily in the basement. Even my own empty stomach was ignored to peruse the internet for about 10 minutes before I reasoned to myself that if I just went through the hour process of making lunch, eating, and getting the kids down for naps/quiet time, I could have a quiet time of my own to do nothing (or blog).

5. Question about Minnesota life: If it snows before you rake all of your leaves, what are you supposed to do? Can we count on the snow melting before it really freezes up for the Winter? Further, I wasn’t finished “Winterizing” my garden. Please tell me that there will be a thaw. I will be hiding in my warm, cozy soft basement until then.

6. I have been following a this blog called Blossoming Joy by a Catholic, homeschooling mom since August. There is something about it that I find sweet, and I really enjoy her thoughts and the way she raised her children. Further, I am pretty sure my husband was just like her teenage son when he was a teenager.

7. This is the obligatory comment on my blog about the World Series not turning out as I had hoped. A brilliant author once penned: “Baseball is a cruel, but beautiful game, played in the shape of a diamond.” Let’s all think about that for awhile…

 

Photo by Canadian Veggie.

For more Quick Takes head on over to Jen!

Seven Quick Takes, Sept. 27

1. I wrote this piece for Truth and Charity this week. It is about societies attitude on having children and how it is messed up. And I also try to figure out the right attitude to have.

2. We drove the 900 miles to Buffalo, NY this week. It is a long way. Why is our country so big?

3. I think we are going to break two little four year old girls’ hearts again when we have to leave Buffalo. But before that we have a big gathering of friends tonight. It is great to be back.

4. For the record, there are seven kids napping in this house right now. There are 2 ten month old babies, 1 eighteen month old, 1 two and a half year old, 1 three year old, and 2 four year olds. S has a magic touch with her kids and niece, and I just got lucky with mine…

5. Old friends are great for getting perspective on life, especially the ones who totally understand everything about my life…

6. My kids both claim to like dogs after living with a fairly tame one for 48 hours. I wonder how the acceptance will pass from dog to dog.

7. These are so short because I am tired and my kids have been going to sleep on their central time zone bedtime and waking up with the eastern time zone sun.

Linking up with Jen.

Some of Our Reasons for Homeschooling

Another school year has begun. The kids have all had their first day. This is my fifth fall as a mom, and it has seemed like a very long time since G was born to when she is officially kindergarten age. She will not be until next September. Most kids her age are attending a preschool of some sort a few days a week or even every day. I have been thinking about what it would be like for the family if she went away even twice a week for the morning. There would definitely be a gap in my life. I felt it when I dropped her off to VBS for a week in the summer. It would not feel quite right to have her gone several mornings a week, especially since the afternoons are nap and quiet times. She and her sister would hardly have time to play with each other. We have many other reasons for home schooling, but now that I have disciplined myself to have a schedule of home schooling everyday after morning Mass before I do anything else, I am seeing how great it is for G (4.5) and L (2.5) to spend some structured learning time with me, have a snack, and then have the rest of the morning to play together. It is great. I would not do it any other way.

M and I decided that we wanted to home school any children we might have before we were even engaged. In fact we had a pretty long list of kids names at that point as well. I suppose we are planners. I am learning that when I plan, when I schedule, when the order of life makes sense to me, that is when I am able to best manage the home and keep family life pleasant for all. This semester I am starting to get back into the ordering and planning of family life. I have always had a loose structure, but I am going to get things together in a more ordered way (especially now that the printer ink has been delivered and I can print out my lists and things to put in my “homemaking binder”!) The kids are responding really well to more structure as well. More structure means that they have more free play time as well, and structured time with me helps them feel more confident in play time.

I went to public schools through middle school in a small school district in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis. My parents thought that this school district was particularly good, even better than the closest Catholic school. All of my siblings went there. I had some wonderful friends in elementary school, some great teachers, but I see that my eduction was lacking in a lot of ways. The foundations of memorization, grammar, and the classics were not there. When I went to my all-girls Catholic High School I had to learn how to diagram sentences to catch up. I still am awful when it comes to naming the part of speech (but I can write creatively…). M, on the other hand, went to Catholic schooling from pre-school through his Masters degree. Coming from both backgrounds, we feel that our kids can do better than we did (isn’t that the American dream?).

We want our kids to have a classical education, and I think that I can give it to them, even if it means relearning the parts of speech at least three more times. Maybe it will stick one of these times. I am learning to read through phonics for the first time. But this is not about filling in the gaps in my education, it is about giving my children the foundation they need to know truth (which leads them to God).

I am pretty sure we are going to pick and choose books for each subject and not set ourselves into one curriculum. That is what this last year of just preschool is for us. I am easing in and stumbling looking around, and finding what works for us. For example, I really need books to come with instructions for me as well as my children. It always surprises me when the teacher’s manual tells me to say things and G actually responds to it more than whatever instructions I came up with. I suppose I will get more of an instinct for teaching as we go along, but for now I am a total novice. I am more full of conviction that I will home school my children than knowledge of how I am going to pull it off. It will probably happen one day at a time, and I know we will be better for it.

Seven Quick Takes-Friday, Sept. 6

1. It’s been a few weeks since I wrote Quick Takes. Last Friday (the normal day for Quick Takes) we were in the middle of our summer visit with my parents in St. Louis. It was a wonderful visit. We did all the normal St. Louis things: St. Louis style pizza, Cardinal’s baseball, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, Toasted Ravioli, etc.

Picture from St. Louis Business Journal

2. It was typical hot St. Louis summer weather, so we threw in a trip to Grant’s Farm to make sure we really appreciated the 97°F day. My favorite thing about Grant’s Farm was the hospitality of the employees. They did things like take our strollers for us when we got to the tram and gave free samples to the adults of the Bud Light Lime-a-rita.
I promise I do not ever drink Bud Light, but the Lime-a-rita served over ice was pretty good on a hot day with three little girls in tow. I appreciate the offer of a drink to parents out with kids…

3. The baby has reached the age in which car naps last 30 minutes and no longer. This means our 9 hours on the road was with her mostly awake and often not happy about it. Oh well. This, too, shall pass. All of the children are able to content themselves with books and toys in the car. They don’t even know that we have a DVD player in the car. I think we will keep it that way, since screens in the car for kids who never use any screens would probably be a recipe for disaster.

4. G (4.5) is finally at the point where she can follow audiobooks. Last trip we did Farmer Boy by Laura Ingals Wilder and this trip we did Little House in the Big Woods. We all enjoyed listening to the stories, and it made me very happy that I do not live in a little house in the big woods of Wisconsin with bears for neighbors. Also, I have time to do things like blog and read novels in the evening instead of constantly working to keep my family fed and clothed. I suppose I should think about that when I feel annoyed about having to shop for clothing… at least I don’t have to make it!

5. Saga of the Leaky Pipe Update:  Things are progressing slowly. The did not do much while we were out of town. I think we are still at least a month out from things being completed.

6. We started a scheduled life this week with our pre-school. I am trying to take the advice of every home schooling mom I have heard on the subject of pre-school and to not try to do too much. I am sticking with about an hour a day during the baby’s morning nap. I am finding that it might be easier to just include L (2.5) in everything G and I are doing. She likes to be included and if she is doing something different than G, G is completely distracted. I would not be surprised if we combine subjects with them in the future and if L is one of those really early readers.

7. Because of my scheduling, we are done with school around 10 am. This means I have a full two hours before lunch to get things done everyday! I need to get more disciplined with myself and get things done! Such as, taking the baby monitor out to the garage and starting a furniture painting project before it gets too cold around here. I am waiting on the basement to do any sewing things I have in mind.

That’s all folks. Head over to Jen for more quick takes!