Seven Quick Takes Vol 11: Just a Typical Summer with Kids

-- 1 --

You may have noticed First Daughter's sling in the Shakespeare recitations I posted on Wednesday. She broke it while roller skating here at home last Sunday evening.

It was a bad break and required more than seven hours in two different hospitals to be set and splinted. We'll be seeing the doctor about every other week for the next six to eight weeks, but, unlike an adult, she shouldn't need surgery. We're praying each night to St. Stanislaus Kostka (patron saint of broken bones) that all heals well.

There's a long list of things she won't be doing this summer, but we're trying to focus on what she can do. (If you have ideas for super-fun not-very-expensive summer activities for an active 8 year old girl in a cast, please leave them in the comments.)

First Daughter now has the distinction of being the first child in our family to have a broken arm. She's also the first for staples, but not for infection-caused-by-LEGO or baby-teeth-crushed-and-extracted.

-- 2 --

The week before the broken arm, the older three children went to Totus Tuus at our parish, which is our version of vacation Bible school. It was Second Daughter's first year and First Son's last year for the day program. Next year, he'll be old enough to go to the evening program. Yikes!

As a homeschooling mom, I struggle with letting my children go and listen to others talk about our faith in a less precise way than I would prefer, but it is only one week a year and they love it so I take a deep breath and tell myself they'll be fine.

-- 3 --

For my birthday, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a five year diary. The first few weeks were really memorable: a vacation in Illinois with my parents, swimming in the pond, Second Son falling in (and being promptly rescued), fishing, an overnight trip with the kids to Chicago (art museum fail, field museum mostly win, train ride win), an overpriced visit to a Legoland Discovery Center (the best place Second Son has ever been), and a series of fun dinner guests. I was just beginning to wonder what I would write when things were calm and boring when First Daughter broke her arm.

-- 4 --

In order to go to said Legoland, we drove nine hours from my parents' house in Illinois to a church in Kansas. Kansas Dad had gone online and found one near our hotel with a Saturday evening vigil. It ended up being a church out in the country, but with a big parking lot. Our kids were not in the most pious frame of mind as they had just spent nine hours in a van, were already hungry for dinner (despite many snacks), and had been partaking of screen time. We were surprised to find ourselves at a Mass with an archibishop, all the Knights of Columbus, and a baptism. Many vigil Masses are 45 minutes long. This one was an hour and a half. Second Son has not behaved so horribly at Mass for years.

I remember one point in the homily when the archbishop was talking about the missionary work of parents who take their children to Mass even though it's difficult. I would not have been surprised if he had pointed right at us, standing alone behind the huge glass doors separating the vestibule from the sanctuary, a perfect example.

-- 5 --

I have a new camera! I bought it with birthday money and am so happy to have one without random circles all over the place. (The old one had something on the lens inside the camera. It needed to be taken apart and cleaned which was going to cost more than a new one. Now, the old one belongs to Second Son, who takes horrible pictures and runs down the battery watching videos on it.)

The new camera can take a bunch of pictures in succession, which gives us fun collections like these:

-- 6 --

Last week the children and I watched The Tale of Despereaux. It was a travesty. I mourned for the poor author who watched a movie studio take her beautiful novel and turn it into that movie. Don't watch it. Instead, read the book.  It reminded us of the horrible adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Read that book, too, and don't watch the movie.

-- 7 --

A few days ago we went to a house concert, which should have been a tremendous amount of fun surrounded by friends and good music outdoors on a summer evening. Unfortunately, Second Daughter jumped off the swing, landed on her arm, and wept quietly for an hour before Kansas Dad took her to the emergency room. It was his second time in the same week with a daughter and a broken or maybe-broken arm. Sigh. Happily, her arm does not seem to be broken, though it has been aching for a few days.

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