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Yesterday we got an email about a “Miss Amazing Pageant,” for girls with special needs. The first age group begins at age, 5. After our Glamourazzi experience I wondered if Julianna might find something like this really fun, so I sent it to my husband. Here is his response:
I can just see the interview competition now –
“Julianna – which type of food do you prefer?”
PASTA — AAAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!
“Julianna – can you tell us what sound a Tiger makes?”
GRRROOOOOOOWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (at the same time, the sound guy runs for cover as all the microphones and speakers explode from the feedback.)
…… and we’ll be back after dealing with these technical difficulties…..
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Last week we walked out of our choir warmup room, which happens to be Alex’s schoolroom, and on the far wall I saw this:
It is the Easter Tree from my new Lent book, and it looks like several, if not all, the first grade classes at the local school are using it this season. It’s a crazy sensation, part pride, part humility, part awe and amazement, to see your work in use in the real world.
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Which leads to this: no matter how comfortable I am sharing my own story, there are times when it feels very vulnerable to blog honestly. Whenever I confess my mommy fail moments, as I did yesterday, there’s a sense that I invite judgment. Because if I wasn’t trying to do so much (read that: work at home), I’d be more patient, I wouldn’t fly off the handle without cause. Right? So obviously, the fact that I do lose it means I’m disobeying my vocation as a mother; I shouldn’t be trying to do anything else–only be a mother to these kids; obviously that is my whole and entire function in this world, right? These are the kinds of neuroses suffered by every mother I know who works on any level. Every. Single. One.
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Nonetheless, neuroses, while they have to be kept under control, do have this benefit: they force you to be honest, and I know I need to pull back. My instinct is to push, push, push, to try to get as far ahead of my deadlines as possible, but I know I need an occasional day where I plan not to work–where I simply take care of what needs taking care of: family, house, errands. Otherwise, I end up having day after day of middling nonproductivity caused by trying to dog paddle through the rest of it, and that’s when I get frustrated. Jen’s post yesterday made me realize it was time for one of those days. So I will not be writing today–only grocery shopping, house cleaning, spending time with kids.
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Are you ready for some more Chesterton? This reflection on modern philosophy cracked me up:
“The philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded ont he universal common conviction that eggs are eggs. The Hegelian may say that an egg is really a hen, because it is a part of an endless process of Becoming; the Berkelian may hold that poached eggs only exist as a dream exists; since it is quite as easy to call the dream the cause of the eggs as the eggs the cause of the dream; the pragmatist may believe that we get the best out of scrambled eggs by forgetting that they ever were eggs, and only remembering the scramble. But no pupil of St. Thomas needs to addle his brains in order adequately to addle his eggs … The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested to by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God.”
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I have a fiction excerpt up today, too… Yes, I know, that’s writing. But I couldn’t quite get it done yesterday (refer to “middling nonproductivity”) and today’s the linkup. But that’s it, now I’m taking the day off work.
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I know I had something else I wanted to say, but it’s time to start my day off work. (See? I can self-discipline.) Have a good weekend!
Kathleen M. Basi 