Category: Evil Dictator

3.5 Time Outs: Vatican Spies

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy putting the mmmmn in Church Militant since  . . . well, awhile.

It's electric. Except when it's not.

1.

You wanna know what’s better than bacon? Eric Sammons e-mailing to ask, “May I send you a review copy of my new book?”

I know!  I couldn’t believe it either!  I figured the SuperHusband must have driven to Florida in desperation, in order to beg a perfect stranger to please give his wife something, anything, that would help her grow in holiness.  He would have observed that I already had a large collection of freebie plastic rosaries, so please did Mr. Sammons know of anything else that might help?

Another possible explanation is that since I liked the first book, maybe I’d like the next one, too.

2.

I worry sometimes that if I get too many review books, it will cause me to neglect my local Catholic bookstore.  Fear not!  The kids are taking care of us.  For example – item #2 that’s better than bacon: This Sunday the “Roamin’ Catholic” bookmobile was parked at our parish.  Yay!  My favorite time of year!  And the 4th grader spots this DVD and asks, “Please can we get this Mom?”

It’s a pretty simple formula:  Child requests DVD about real-life Nazi-thwarting Secret Agent Nun?  Mom says, “Um.  Yes.”  We haven’t watched it yet, though.  I’ve been too busy yelling at the kids to clean the house growing in holiness.

3.

My biggest disappointment in reading Jack Chick tracts was the discovery that, through some bureaucratic snafu, I’d been cheated.  If I really became a citizen of Vatican City the day I was baptized, where’s my passport???  Ah, but now my son has rectified my problem, and issued me my secret-agent ID:

Don’t worry, I’m still gonna carry my regular ID as well.

3.5

 . . . delightful to read on a Sunday afternoon.  See the review just below this post, or click here.

EDITED to add: And yeah, of course it’s link day.  If you have one you want to share, we’re all eyes.

3.5 Time Outs: Sursum Corda

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who, I am sorry to learn, does not like leftovers for breakfast.   Read the whole tragic childhood tale by clicking the photo:

The Fulwilinator is on leave . . . will Larry finally seize power, or will SuperGirl Hallie Lord keep him at bay?

1.

You’ll never guess where I saw the words Sursum Corda last Friday, when I was busy not getting my seven takes up on time for that other person.

***

Also I learned later in the day:  Though “Sursum Corda” sure sounds like the name of a papal encyclical, it isn’t.

Which means: I gave somebody a little bit of wrong information.  Nuts.  But I also gave a lot of correct information.  For example, you would have found it in this book – p. xxvii.  And others like it.

2.

But you know, if you google the words Sursum Corda + Pope Benedict, you get a lot of hits.  Is it my fault I spend too much time on the Internet reading this stuff until it becomes one giant jumble of confused trivia? Wait, don’t answer that.

3.

You may have noticed that adolescent boys don’t necessarily google these same topics.  Which is why I have begun a massive print propaganda campaign, in which I subscribe to the publications I think my child should read, then leave them on the bathroom counter for him to discover when he’s hiding from his math homework.

Might I add that Catholic Answers, Envoy, OSV and The Register run some seriously good articles?  It is as if all the stuff you read for free online is not the very best of contemporary Catholic writing, and that there is value to be had in paying writers for their work.  I never guessed.

3.5

So your hints for the solution to #1 are:

A.) The Inferno.

B.)  In which city you can still see this guy’s house:

C. )  And this hat. Which causes me to pun horribly every time I see it:

Mighty Mitres, Batman!

3.5 Time Outs: Eye Candy

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy.  It was time for a new theme picture, and I thought it should fit the reality of Larry’s attempts at Internet Conquest:

There is no escaping the girl power, Larry.

1.

St. Barbara:

This is a close-up of my friend Sandra’s Icon of St. Barbara that she painted for a fundraising auction.  You can see the whole thing at her art page.  FYI, this is a pic of the almost-completed icon, I think she still had some details to work on when this was shot.

2.

By the same artist:

3.

And something completely different:

The tulips he bought because he loves me.  The photo he took because he needed it for his presentation this Friday.

3.5

It was because a certain child threatened a sibling with, “I’m going to put a bag full of dirt in a pillowcase in your bed for a pillow.”

Of course.

For the record: I am so grateful the threat was never fully carried out.  After about 7pm, I don’t do drama.  Just no.  No.

Icon and manuscript copyright Sandra Lagnese, used with permission.

3.5 Time Outs: Paying Attention

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is proof dark lords must have many skills.

It's still the New Year. I know because I keep writing the wrong date on my checks.

1.

There’s a short list of things I can only do with 100% concentration:

  • Clean my desk.
  • Order a new toner cartridge.
  • Read Pope Benedict.

I’m sure there are others, but those are the one’s I’ve noticed.

2.

Which is why it is taking me 10,000 years to get my review done for this book:

So I’ll just tell you it’s a good book.  At least, the first half is.

–> But last week, St. Alphonsus Liguori was our saint for the chapter for religious ed, and of course I knew he was going to rock, but I secretly thought he might be a boring saint, but look, he’s a Doctor of the Church, and hey I have this partly-read book and maybe he’s in it.   Sure enough, yes, Liguori rocks.  Seriously cool saint.  Definite patron-to-catechists action going on.

Funny story though: I always research our saints because usually kids prefer a good re-telling with lots of dramatic (but censored) details, and I didn’t want to show up at class and just read from the textbook.  But I told the kids to flip to the page in their book with the big picture so they’d have something to look at . . . and they just wanted to read aloud.  So I let them.

3.

Today I discovered one thing I can do with a steady flow of distraction and interruption: Work on the homeschooling book.  Indeed, sitting on the couch staring at the backs of two children who have to be watched constantly in order to get their homework done?  It practically inspires.

I think I can knock out a 1,000 words a day just between 11am and noon, after littles have been sent to recess, and I’m sitting there playing overseer to the big people.

3.5

The other thing I do to keep from going barking mad while kids are doing school homework and can’t really be left alone but also don’t need help the whole time?  Mindless cleaning jobs.

Which is how I finally got around to asking what I’d started to ask last time I attempted to clean the porch: “Why do we have a bread bag full of dirt stuffed in a pillowcase?”

My Offspring.

Me:  Get your work done while I take a shower.  I’m going to do the check-off at 2pm, because I have the catechist meeting tonight, so I can’t check you off after dinner.

Child: I want to go!

Me: ?  Um.  Why would you want to go to a catechist meeting?

Child: I want to hear you talk.

Me:  You hear me talk all day long.

Child: I want to hear about catechist stuff.

Me:  The DRE might switch plans and not have me talk.

Child: There might be soda.

[Ah.  Yes.  Now you sound like a normal child.  Whew.]

Me: Yes, there will almost certainly be soda.  They are serving pizza.

Child: Pleeaaase can I go?

Me: It’s out of the question if your homework is not done.

–> Child panics, drops toys, runs to desk, starts working diligently.

Is it the soda or the catechist talk?  I don’t know.  If she gets the homework done, I guess I let her come?  Or tell her she can stay home and watch Anne of Avonlea instead.  That would work.

7 Quick Takes: Nday Ithway Ouryay Iritspay

Look! The Post-It Notes! I Finally Remembered! Click to see 7 x 77 Quick Takes

 

Resisted the urge to flee to 3.5 Time Outs, which would have been more realistic, except that Tuesdays aren’t any better than Fridays.  Due to the plague, I didn’t see it until Thursday anyway.

1.

Dear Son Whom I Love,

Please do not make fake retching noises while you do your homework.

Sincerely,

The Person Who Assigns Grades.

2.

An Advent novel!  Back before we had kids, SuperHusband observed that among his colleagues, the parents of young children were constantly getting sick.  Now we have young children.  So I use these special parenthood moments to catch up on my homeschooling reading.  Which is why I read The Bronze Bow this week while other responsible adults were doing things like going around upright, and speaking without coughing.  It’s Mr. Boy’s new literature selection.

Ignore the goofy cover art. This is a super book.

And wow, a good book!  If you haven’t read it, it is awesome, and I mean that with all the italics of a crazy person, awesome Advent reading.  Highly recommended.

3.

I went ahead and bought the Kolbe literature questions.  Pretty useful, and not a bad deal for what will be about a collective decade worth of literature for my kids. And I thought, “Hey, how cool, reproducibles!”  So I made copies.  And then just to be sure before I posted on the blog something like, “Hey, how cool, reproducibles!” I double-checked.  Oooh.  Noooo.  Red all-caps on the back cover: IT IS ILLEGAL TO PHOTOCOPY THIS BOOK.

So I guess I’ll chain it to a desk and bookmark the pages select children (who cannot be trusted with a book — see “retching noises” above) need to view.

Grumble grumble.  Publishers trying to make a living. What, they need to eat or something??

4.

Here’s what happens when you foolishly invite an SCA friend (who said, “I was thinking of coming to your church”) to come to your church:  The choir director chooses a 9th Century hymn for communion.  Ours didn’t sound as impressive as the link (whose does?), plus it was in English (full disclosure: English is one of my favorite languages), but that did not stop me from pointing to the note at the bottom of the hymnal and whispering, “Look!  9th Century!”

So if I get fired, that’s why.

(PS: It isn’t just me. My friend says she kept noticing the Byzantine scrollwork on the Catholic Update pew cards with all the translation changes.  I believe good art may be a near occasion of sin for us.)

5.

Out on the playground after mass, discussing the new translation with a different friend, a realization: To be Catholic is to complain.

–> If we were Protestant, we’d take our protesting seriously and go start our own church.  Instead we stick around.  And that, I think, is why Catholics have such a well-developed Theology of Suffering.  We live with each other.

(Ever notice the heavy emphasis on Not Complaining in the lives of saints?  It is as if the writers of these things wish to inspire us to heroic silence. Apparently one could be canonized, even declared a Doctor of the Church, if only the art of Not Complaining were practiced wholeheartedly.)

6.

Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.

7.

Dear Son Whom I Love,

There is no approved translation of the Roman Missal into Pig Latin.  Nor will there ever be.  Stop.  Now.

Sincerely,

The Person Upon Whom You Depend For Room And Board.

5.2

So what if I gave up complaining?

Wipe that smirk off your mouth.

Seriously.  Do you know someone who isn’t a Doctor of the Church, but pulled it off anyway?  Even half the time?  What do you do when someone asks your opinion of, oh, you know, something?  Do you say, “I’d tell you except that I gave up complaining for Advent?”  Or maybe you just pinch the baby or drop a vase or do something to change the subject?

Smirk.  Off.

Advent!

Catching up on my goofing off, and could not agree more with this post by Fr. L on Anticipating Advent.

Our preparation: Yesterday took the kids to Target to get them decent black slacks that reach all the way to the tops of shoes, after the, er, interesting things that appeared on our altar last Sunday.  Yikes.   Had to do that fast before the shoppers arrived.

So I’m reading Fr. L and thinking, yes, yes, yes!  And then I thought, “that theme seems vaguely familiar.” Wow I should totally write down what that lady said on Sarah’s blog, gosh I bet she’s so pulled together.  [See: Things That Appeared On Our Altar]

**********

Advent PSA: If you’re on the fence about darkening the doors of a Catholic Church.

Topic that came up last night:

Let’s say you are a lapsed Catholic or non-Catholic who is looking for a church to attend after a long time away.  Perhaps you have noticed there’s a Catholic parish near you, and you have a vague idea about maybe dropping in sometime.  But you’re nervous.  You’ll stand out.  You can’t remember (or never knew) how the whole Mass thing works.  People are going to laugh at you when you say or do the wrong thing.

Is that you?

Come this Sunday!  Everyone will be just as lost!  We’ll all have our eyes glued to the handy pamphlet in the pews!  We’ll be mumbling!  We’ll say the wrong things!  The new (old) hand motions will feel so weird!  The music will be really good or really bad or just really strange . . . to all of us together!

It’s Leveling The Playing Field Sunday.  Come. 

Kolbe update, week 5

We just started week 5, thought I’d give a little report on how things are going.  Re-cap: This is our first year using Kolbe.  6th and 4th grader are enrolled, and mostly following the plan with a couple substitutions.  2nd grader and kindergartener continue to do the home-grown, relaxed-schooling thing.

Overall Impression: Very happy with the decision.  On a day like today (evil dictator felled by an evil-er cold), wow it is SO MUCH BETTER having the plans ready-to-go.  Oh I know, it is so easy to make your own course plans.  Oh, I know, it only takes a few minutes to type them up each week.  But wow, being able to growl at a child and say, “Where are you in your homework?” is even easier.

–> Without ready-made, day-by-day plans, two big kids would definitely still be on the relaxed-schooling plan, which I really love for the little guys, but is not the ideal choice for our older kids.  Way too many disruptions in the school year so far (exhibit A: evil dictator with evil cold), no way I could have held together a formal curriculum if it relied 100% on my willpower alone.

Some comments on specific subjects:

Latin: Mr. Boy is doing the first year of New Missal Latin.  I like it pretty well.  Like the kolbe-published supplemental resources.  Will say this: In my opinion, the teaching parent needs to either have a smattering of Latin under the belt, or be ready to learn-along.  Having already done the intro to classical Latin in previous years, these first few weeks have been largely review for Boy & myself, and yes that is very nice.  Now is not my time to be learning a new language.  No really.  Sometimes it is not that time.

(Remind me also I have some other comments on this particular Latin program and the pro’s and con’s.  For a post another day.)

Grammar:  No shock here, I’m one of ten people in the known universe who actually likes Voyages in English.  So far, no difficulties.  Definitely if you haven’t diagrammed sentences before, you want the intro to diagramming booklet as a supplement.

Composition: I failed to observe that there is a separate composition book for 6th grade in addition to the vocabulary and grammar books.  Kolbe plans call for one assignment a week from that book.  I’d already maxed out the book budget.  So I typed up 36 composition assignments for the Boy, and stuck those in his plan book.  Conveniently, 6th graders do not use the composition portion of VOE, so I borrowed from there.

Spelling / Vocabulary:  The kids hate this.  Lot of work.  I keep reminding them that a good PSAT / SAT score is worth cold hard cash.    They get that.  We’ve used Spelling Power in the past, and have good results with using that study method for studying the words missed on the pre-test.   The whole amount of Kolbe-assigned words is a lot, though.  And we’ve had a couple weeks with enough disruptions that I couldn’t keep up my end on this one through the whole week.  We just move on to the next week, rather than piling up.

Word Study:  Oh, yeah, and word study.  Gee these children get a LOT of language arts.  They tell me this one is easy (MCP Plaid).  It is also good for them.  Happy there.  Decided this was one workbook the kids could write their answers in, would be a royal pain to have to do the assignments on a separate page.

Geography:  Lovin’ the geography books.  Short, easy assignments, genuinely useful map skills.  Makes me happy.

Religion: Of course I like it (Faith & Life), I was already using it anyway.  This is the other activity book I let the kids write in.  Pretty happy with the addition of the St. J’s Balt. Catechisms as well, serious retro power going on there.  My DRE also likes the program.    She’s experimenting with one section of F&L for 8th grade CCD this year.  (Rest of us are using our same Loyola Press books from previous years.  Which are fine.  But I’d still make my kids do F&L at home.)

Science:  Not a demanding program, which works for me.  We skip the Monday “investigation” every week, so far there hasn’t been one worth the hassle.  Also, I have the workbooks but the course plans don’t call for them, and both kids have decided we are happier not doing them.  I’m good with having them do just the textbook reading and review questions, and they can unschool any other science they desire. I like that balance.  [Recall: Two real microscopes in my living room.  Engineer at the dinner table every night.  Unschooling science is a viable option.]

Literature:  Um, where are the study questions? Apparently they are in some other place than the course plans.  I guess a Kolbe booklet I was supposed to buy?   For the uninitiated: You acquire the book you are studying — White Fang and Misty of Chincoteague to start, for us — and then the course plans give you chapter reading assignments and a weekly short essay to write, book report at the end.  And those plans also mention these “study questions” and “vocabulary” and stuff.  But they aren’t in the plans.    And no, I can’t be bothered to go look back at the Kolbe catalog, nor to post a question on the Kolbe forums.  Because, um, my magic pen of you-don’t-have-to-do-this works great!  I just cross out assignments!  We love it!

–> As a result: I let the girl take her final exam open-book and open-dictionary (Misty only takes 5 weeks), since it would be requiring her to have memorized study questions she’d never seen.  Flipped around the final week course plans to have her do the exam first and write the book report second.

Math: Not using Saxon.  Nothing against it.  We’re just still happy with Math-U-See, didn’t see a reason to switch when that was already working. 

History: Recall everyone’s doing Rome this year, which would ordinarily be the 5th grade course.  Very happy both with using the program as written for Mr. Boy, and subbing in History Pockets for the first two quarters for the girl.  Not much else to say.  The Kolbe-recommended course is very good.  And one of my children really needed to meet Ancient Rome in a perkier manner.

[But yes, I had to pick up a library book on the Aztecs, because HP fails to mention the, er, human sacrifice, those amazing wonderful ancient Aztecs were practicing during the European renaissance.  Yeah, I’m a western culture snob.  Facts are facts.  I vote for the no-live-beating-human-hearts-in-the-hands-of-the-priest every time.  Give me self-flagellating, slightly sore-backed penitents over flayed-alive sacrificial victims any day.]

Funny story though: We’re planning to go see our local Roman legion when they gather not so far from us in November.  Except the girls only want to go if they get to dress up.  So a certain growing 4th grader is going to be let loose with some discount linen between now and then.  Luckily the rest of us already own passable garb that still fits.

the child who is determined to hate Kolbe

Yesterday after I dropped the kids off for Grandma time, a little voice told me to visit the other crack dealer Educational Wonderland.  Sure enough, they had cool little wipe-off books of math facts games and drills for the little guys (yes, I gave my daughter math books for her birthday — she was thrilled), and these:

So today I was thumbing through the new history books, and a certain rising 4th grader comes along and picks one up. “Oh.  Those are the terrible KOLBE books.”  Disgust.  Horror.  How could your mother do this to you?!

“No, darling.  Those are the books I got for you to do instead of the Kolbe book.”

“Oooh!”  Picks up book again.  Actually looks at it.  “Hey, this looks fun!”

Yes dear.  After enough years of living with you, I begin to have a clue, thank you.

–>  I found this year that I really like having all four kids on the same subject.  Not necessarily the same books, just the same general topic.  So for the coming year, I signed up both big kids for Kolbe’s Ancient Rome study, which the boy has already started reading for fun, and the girl is determined to hate, on account of it being called Famous Men of Rome.

Emphasis on Men.  She is not interested in Men.  Plus it is Kolbe, and we all know that Kolbe is Evil.  Even though we have never ever tried it, and plus it looks eerily like what we already study.  But it is to be hated.

Anyhow the plan is for the boy to whiz through the set plan, which he will complain is too easy and plus he already read the book this summer and why does he have to do the dumb workbook, blah blah blah, and look, here’s an Osprey book, let’s read that instead, yes dear on your free time you may.  (And he will.)

The craft-loving 4th grader I’m going to let do the Pockets books first.  Q1 she gets to be the teacher and take the littles through Ancient Civilizations.  That’s only 7 pockets, so 7 weeks, and the last two weeks of the quarter she’ll do some timeline work and then write me a report, which will bring up the grade-level to more her age.  Q2, littles will work through some other ancient Rome / Greece items with me, and my Kolbe-hating darling will do the Ancient Rome Pockets book, which will fill the quarter.

Q3 & Q4 she will finally have to buckle down and be serious, and do Q1 &2 of Famous Men per the Kolbe course plans.  Which should be easier having had the intro in the fall.  If she wants she can read the rest of the book in her free time.  Yes, I will totally let a 4th grader master only half of the history of the Roman Empire.  She’ll see it again one day.  Plus she’ll have the motivation of trying to get a higher score on the test than her brother did.  Which will definitely motivate her.

Went ahead and wrote up next year’s plans for the littles, who are still on the library-book method (not Kolbe — I do too much subbing out at that age, we’d only go crazy).  For science, sticking to my ‘everyone studies the same thing’ approach, I went through the 4th grade science course plans from Kolbe, and assigned the littles to study each week whatever topic the 4th grader will be covering.  So that will be a double bonus, in that they can sit in on her science experiments, and she’ll have a bunch of easy library books sitting around that cover the same thing she is learning in her horrible no-good very bad science book.  (That I think she will like.)

–> If I weren’t worried about the good of various eternal souls, and plus having told the whole internet that lying is wrong, I’d just tell her it wasn’t the Kolbe book, and then she’d love it for sure.

[Mr. Boy will be happy to do science all on his own.  I didn’t try to rope him into the coordinating thing for that.]

So we’ll see how that goes.  I’m hopeful.

****

I’m off tomorrow for ten days of Momcation, visiting the nieces who have the good sense to go to school.  Assuming my abandoned children don’t hack into the blog to show the world their atrocious grade-level spelling, expect blog silence here.  If you are desperate for goofing off in my absence, you can check my side bar links and tell me which ones have gone bad — I found one already, and no I haven’t fixed it yet.

Otherwise, enjoy the quiet.  That’s what I’ll be doing.  And have a blessed Memorial Day.