7 Quick Takes

Well, it’s been a pretty heavy topic week on this blog  and I think it’s time for a breather. So today is a 7 Quick Takes day.

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A few times every year I sing the national anthem at university athletic events here in town. I’ve been doing this since I was expecting Nicholas. I’ve done baseball, softball, gymnastics, tennis, women’s basketball, and swimming and diving (where I sing from the highest platform. I did that four weeks before Nicholas was born, and it’s really quite something to look down on that diving pool. It’s a lot darker blue than other pools.) But this week I got a call to sing for a men’s basketball game. (And I found out as I was writing this morning that my parents were at the game!)

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Being a men’s game, I wasn’t allowed to bring the whole family; we only got two tickets. Nicholas was the one who wanted to come. The entire evening he did not stop asking questions. I sang, we went up into the stands to watch for half an hour, and it went on and on. If he didn’t like my first answer he’d ask the same question in marginally different words. It was about the contents of the storage area where I warmed up, and why I was singing toward the color guard instead of the flag hung on the wall, and the game. (I have to say, I was gratified by how much I actually know about basketball!)

By the time we were hurrying back down the hill to the car to get to choir practice, I was wishing I’d thought to count how many questions I’d answered, because I knew no one except Christian and my dad, who’s experienced Nicholas on a roll in a confined space (a tractor cab) would truly get the intensity of that hour and a half.

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Incidentally, can I just insert a gripe here? I made use of a unisex bathroom in the belly of the arena, and a man was walking out, spending all manner of energy trying to turn off the light…and yet HE HADN’T FLUSHED THE TOILET. I thought that was a “kid” thing. Is it actually a “male” thing?????

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Wednesday also happened to be the most useless, uncalled-for snow day ever to smack a work-at-home mom between the eyes. Two. Inches. Of snow. The single good thing about that day was that the kids had dental appointments at 8 a.m., and this way they didn’t miss any school.

But if it tells you anything about our day, every single one of my children had had a crying (or screaming) breakdown before ten a.m. Every single one. And by noon, I was threatening to send them to their rooms for the remainder of the day if they couldn’t get along.

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We’ve started doing First Communion prep work with Julianna, and although it’s not my favorite way to approach the topic, the book begins with the whole community-building-by-comparison-to-family. Julianna had to draw a family picture, which we all found so funny that I just wanted to share it today:

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This is boring post. But I have a lot to do, so I’m just going to go with it.

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Next week is an event I’ve been looking forward to for several months: a retreat for liturgical composers. If you’re in the St. Louis area, there will be a benefit concert on Thursday night (info here), which, knowing the level of musicianship of the people who are going to be there, I can guarantee will be a good one. I couldn’t commit to this weeklong event for a long time because it’s so hard to work out child care. Eventually we just had to say, “Oh, we’ll figure it out, go ahead and register.” Naturally, Christian’s work commitments prevent him from taking off most of the time he asked for; ergo a whole lot of my to-do list for the next few days involves figuring out how to get kids home from school and safely supervised until he gets home from work.

These are the moments in which you realize the monetary value of a stay-or-work-at-home parent.

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Oh, that’s right! I forgot this little gem of Michael’s, a child who is developing an incredibly rich and unselfconscious pretend life: “I am Wolverine, and I have FORKS!”

Have a great weekend!