My Baby is Seventeen

Ok, he is my oldest, so not the 'baby' of the family.

But he was my first baby. This is going to be sentimental, so feel free to skip it. I promise to post a cartoon or something tomorrow. lol

Birthdays are pretty special around here and that may be in part because there is just the four of us, we can do them up pretty well. I know big families who also love birthdays but they have them almost every month with all the kids! But around here, July is a big birthday month for Stephen and me, the October for John and Bryan. ;) We only get birthdays twice a year!

We are not celebrating until the weekend as John is out of town on a sales trip. But, of course, we need to mark the day and make it special.

I have loved doing up the day for my boys in years past. Every birthday I make them a 'certificate' framed and signed by the whole family, pets sometimes, too, and grandparents when they are in town. It tells them how special they are and basically gives them a pass from all chores on the big day. The boys each have a wall of certificates framed on their bedroom walls. :)

We are in the habit the past few years of giving the boys a 'starter' present in the morning as John would be working and then we would have our family celebration in the evening, complete with chocolate cake (with homemade butter cream frosting) for dessert. I only make that cake three times a year. It is so rich, that is just enough---oh it is heavenly!

In past years the starter present has often been a video game, and they get to play all day (no limits!)-I also have been known to wrap up beautiful packages containing such things as 7up, Pringles, Almond Joys, Skittles (when they were little) to make the day extra special.


Today I just have a bunch of balloons tied to Stephen's chair. And I wrapped up some beautiful fridge magnets I found at Franklin Covey. One says:

Never never never never never never give up. ~Winston Churchill

The other is a wonderful quote about following your dreams. (it is wrapped so I can't quote it exactly). They will end up on the fridge for us all to see every time we grab a snack or drink.

Later today we follow another tradition that started somehow a few years ago. The boys have a good friend, C.B, and we got in the habit of going the four of us to Olive Garden and ordering soup and breadsticks (and salad for me). It is unlimited! So we go in the non-rush hours, and they bring and bring and bring food and I get to talk with these young men. I take them on each one's birthday- so we get to go 3 times a year. Fun!

I always warn the waiter... prepare to bring LOTS of breadsticks! Seeing three teen boys they always nod knowingly.


So, as I was in the grocery store buying balloons, it hit me. My baby is 17. I tried to survey the years as I walked through the aisles and back to my car. What a privilege it has been to watch him grow up. The past few years have especially been poignant as we see him passing my dh and myself at times in knowledge and insight.

And I see more clearly each year that God created each child, each person so uniquely. The traits I remember when Stephen was 2, are still here at 17. It is who he is through and through. I feel incredibly lucky to have been his mom on this journey.

The I tried to remember his birth day. Oh, that was so long ago. Long, long. I was in such a different place. My faith has grown so much since then (thank you, Lord)- as it was barely on my mind then. I was so young and had such little experience with babies. I know God's graces were with me, as I made many mistakes, but somehow learned. I know he put people in my life. I can see them all, many who I still keep up with and have met in recent years and are reading this now. What a wonderful tapestry life is.

Ok, so my big kids and I are going to enjoy this day, then await our weekend celebrations. I am feeling very lucky these days.

St. Benedict of Nursia

Today is the feast day of St. Benedict!

Taking a cue from my friend Leonie a friend and I are going to get our kids together and celebrate today.

Actually Leonie gave me more than a cue, she gave me a how to, as I always try to overplan everything!

KISS! (keep it simple, sillygoose!) lol

Ok, so here are our plans:

I found some info on the internet (excuse me while I give my dear computer a big juicy hug!) about St. Benedict. I learned so much. I mean, I really had no clue about this saint. One reason this idea appealed to me was to learn more about the liturgical year and saints.

Some things I learned-
-He was Italian and died in 537 AD

-He was a monk.

-He wrote the Rule of Life. Until that time monks had no formation or set of guidelines and from what I learned there were some pretty wild monks out there! And some not so wild.

-He also spent time discerning HOW to live like Christ, but also relate to ourselves and people. So as not to get so strict and autocratic with rules that we don't see our humaness, in ourselves and others. Something I think all faithful people struggle with at some point.

There is much more to this saint... go google him! If I can do this, anyone can. :)

I found the following websites and suggested the teens and olders read yesterday in preparation for today:
Biography of St. Benedict

Rule of St. Benedict
This is very long and involved. I just printed out the table of contents for the kids to read- that in itself is very enlightening. If you want to read the actual rule, it is all hyperlinked in this text. Very interesting reading!
How to Write your Own Rule of Life This site is interesting as it is one person's suggestion of how to apply the rule to your own life and write a personal Rule of Life

For the little kids (my friend has several youngers) I printed out this coloring sheet:
Coloring saints

And did a word search puzzle for them on Puzzlemaker
(this is one of my all time favorite sites.. used it a lot when kids where younger- took 3 min to make the puzzle..easy!)

So today we are meeting at Fazoli's, a fast food Italian place to celebrate St. Bendict's day with an Italian feast! We will talk with the olders a bit about his life and where he lived and how he lived, and encourage them to think about their own Rule of Life. Littlies will color and search for words.

Also, for futher reading, here are a couple of interesting sites...
Father's Rule of Life and this one...Online Guide to St. Benedict

Thanks again to my friend Leonie who patiently helped me get going on this! Hugs!!

***REAL LIFE UPDATE***

The resturant was closed down, so we ate pizza (Italian food..) at Costco. The teens talked and olders talked while babies and toddler and my friend and I did some shopping. We ate in the food court and I talked with the three teen boys about St. B.. though they already knew it all... lol

Youngers did fine... next time no project for teens... more fun crafts for youngers and I will get to have fun with the littlies which I miss!

But, we knew St. Benedict was smiling down on us as we walked out into the Costco parking lot and we went to Mass tonight, which of course was all about St. Benedict. And now the olders have a benchmark.

Nice day, though not as planned. Ah... homeschooling! Ah... life!

St. Nick Found Us (or You Can Start New Traditions Even if Your Kids are Teenagers)

Ok, last night at dinner I read from our Pope John Paul II book on Advent. Oh, this was such a find! I highly recommend it.

Afterwards, I pulled out the bits I had found about St. Nick. A brief summary on who he was, how the tradition of gold coins has fully morphed into Santa Clause and what the do in other countries for gifts and traditions, etc.

Then, after dinner, I asked each of my men for a shoe.

Silence. I could tell my 13yos wanted to roll his eyes, but we don't do that in here except in fun, so he didn't.

Relunctantly they each got a shoe for me, knowing this was one of 'Mom's' things. I just smiled and laid the shoes out.

My 16yos then said he didn't think he wanted to eat anything that had been in his shoe. Oh, this is so them! lol

Well.. last night St. Nick came! He brought milk chocolate gold coins for everyone and even some Gherrideli dark chocolate for Dad and some other Gherredeli chocolate for the rest of us.

Smiles this morning!

(and on top of this, my friend Spence's 19yos delieved a St. Nick basket to us today! It was beautiful, full of apple cider, wine glasses, a candle and more chocolate.. What a fun, special day!)

Thanksgiving Tidbits

--Friday morning 16yos woke up a bit late, but hungry. When asked what he wanted for breakfast, he opted for a full plate of Thanksgiving leftovers, complete with gravy and cranberry sauce. He had the same thing for a late afternoon snack. Where does all that food go?

--Last night boys were upstairs and it was very quiet. I found them back in 16yos's room, sitting on the floor, deep in thought. 13yos had a pencil in hand. What are you doing? They were looking at their shelves and shelves of put-together LEGOS collected from years past and trying to decide how to use them in an ultimate RPG game. Something they have been planning for a while and just got inspired.

-- 16yos wrote a reply on his blog about why VG can be a positive for kids. His grandmother read and was so impressed she wanted a copy to show to her bridge group. "Are you SURE you didn't help him with this?" she kept asking me. I don't think she beleived me when I said no.

-- We did 13 dogsit visits over the weekend. Lots of time for talk and connecting.

-- Boys saw how kind and thoughtful he is to his mother, age 87. Kids notice everyting and my dh is such a wonderful role model for them.

-- We ran out of pie on Saturday, so dh made another. (just what we needed!)

-- Mil met Fr. John after Mass on Sunday. He gave a very nice homily and I am so thankful we have him all the way from India.

-- My grocery store had a sale on fall decoration items and I picked up a bunch of stuff real cheap! I put it out, but it will soon be put away and I will have some pretty things for next year.

--I ate a lot, but worked out a lot, too this week, so didn't lose a pound, but did not gain either. Whew!

--After going out to eat last night, we drove around our neighborhood to see what Christmas lights are up, as our culdesac is very well lit already. Turns out our street is the only one showing so well. My 16yos said- 'I'm not going to complain that Christmas celebration is coming too early. I am just going to enjoy it.' Me, too, I thought.

--16yos has decided to start workouts. I went online to help him find some sites and was able to share the knowledge I have learned over the years. I kind of felt like a semi-personal trainer! He decided this on his own-- the atmospehre of dh and myself being exercise people helped I know and he has planned aerobics and strength training for himself, his way.

--13yos and I sat next to each other at the resturant last night and had the most delightful side conversations. I really love being around these guys.

More later if I think of any.


--

Thinking About History

I have been thinking about history and how it has evolved in our house. Also how it has come to reflect the personality of our family. I must say, one of the benefits of homeschooling this long and having 'old' kids as I can look back and see how everything played out!

When the boys were younger we were mostly in Charlotte Mason mode, but I think really it was the Living Books and Atmosphere of the Home modes that were the gold. I think, to do it over, I would skip the daily lesson mode we got into around ages 9-11. That was were our difficulty stemmed. But the read alouds, projects, exploring... that was really fun.

Thinking back, I did not really know about unschooling then. Back then I did a lot of heavy duty strewing and it was perfect for us. I would get tons of picture books and we would read and read. As they got older, we got more involved in chapter books. Lots of DK and Usborne. Though I did plan it to 'cover' periods. We enjoyed a few weeks in the Middle Ages. I read from a spine book (Christ the King, Lord of History, A Child's History of the World, and others) But we had medievel feasts, built castles and had sword fights. What fun!

Would I do it the same way again? I think yes. I think I overdid a bit in some books I thought I had to pour in their heads.. :0.. there was a saturation point, but thinking back the forrays we had into history were nice because they connected the boys with the past. As CM said, don't worry about trying to give a complete survey, but help the child make friends in a deeper way with certain events or people.

I also read and believe that a child really can't grasp a timeline of history until well past 9 years old. So, luckily I let that go after spending hours tacking up a KONOS timeline in our basement when the boys were little bitty.

Oh, hindsight really is 20/20! Looking back I can see that the Classical folks have it right in the Trivium stages of development. I saw that Grammar stage when they just absorbed and absorbed everything we read, saw and did. Then came the Logic stage, where they begin putting it together. And now my 16 yo is delving into the Rhetoric stage and my 13yo is on the cusp. And it all has happened naturally- through lots of fuel and conversation.

Generally I don't consider history a strong point in our home. Well, my dh loves it. And I am beginning to love it, too. But my boys will tell you they don't. But I think that is because they are remembering the ill-assigned reading I gave them for a period and the read alouds that got too long. They also saw a lot of war and bad things happen. History is a lot of bad things, when you think about it. So, I have tried to look at the good things, too, especially through bios of admirable people.
Then see God's plan in it all. The bad stuff is the evil in the world, but there is also a lot of beauty and God's fingerprints are throughout all of time.

But, thinking about history in our home now, what I am finding is that it is playing out through the personality of our home. My husband loves history and current events, though does not systematicly discuss it with the boys, he does occasionally bring it up at the dinner table. I follow current events and feel as a Catholic I need to know and at least try to be aware of what is happening and the Catholic response. They hear us talk, they listen a lot and join in sometimes. It is rubbing off.

What I am seeing is that the current events and our life experiences is pulling history up from the past. For example, the Holy Father's speech about a dialog with the Muslims caused my dh and I to research and share with the boys. Through conversation we are learning more about the Muslim faith and the history of their presence in the world, as well as the Jewish people.

Or we will have a new Indian priest come and begin to reserach where he came from and the pieces will fit into larger picture of history that has developed over the years.

My husband has shared a lot about defending the faith and the history of Catholics and Protestants in past centuries.

Many other events/ideas have caused us to look at where we have been in the past and how it pulls forward to relate to today. Star Wars and LOTR have given us lots of jumping off points to talk about good and evil, facists and Hitler in particular.

I am still strewing, but am finding it interesting how a lot of our history is being explored from today -- and pulling history up to meet us. Not me just getting a book that is firmly set back in time and us trying to make sense of it.

I was listening to an excerpt from Pope Benedict's book The Salt of the Earth today. He was asked how he was so successful at teaching during that part of his life. He said that instead of just cobbling together lectures and lessons from textbooks, he would look at history and discover ways to make it relevant to his students today.

Maybe that is what we are doing in our own clumsy, Kelly way? :) Again, I hear Pope John Paul II's words: "Families, be who you are!" Maybe no other family would like doing things this way and in a way we just fell into it because of our personalities and interests. I read about families who are milking cows and cutting grain, or traveling, or doing a host of other interests, things that we would not be so great at. And they are learning history and all sorts of things, their way.

Sometimes I think often homeschoolers don't trust their family to set the tone. Often they think they have to be a 'perfect Catholic family' - read that: a family like that one over there. But how can we be who we are if we are trying to be something else? I speak here from experience... I have done just that.

Maybe our goal should be to emulate the Holy Family. Yes, a perfect goal. And since God created us so individually, won't that look slightly different as each family stirs around all the family members' personalities and interests in their individual family pot? Each stew will be unique! Just thinking outloud.
Also thinking that I am rather amazed that we are learning a lot of history. Who'd of thunk? :)
God Bless,
Cindy