hit or miss

man your positions...

On our recent Labor Day weekend getaway to my parents' house, my sister introduced the lads to Battleship, the maritime warship game.  They were familiar with Battleship via the Wii, but the younger lad was fascinated with the version that he could hold in his hands and position the ships and pegs just so.  He grew so attached to the game that my dad let the lad bring it home with him.  After Mass on Sunday, the lad set up the consoles to play with his dad and brother, team-style.  Later in the day the consoles became laptop computers for the younger lad and elder lass to pretend they were typing on. The younger lass is our "grease man," able to retrieve pegs that fall into the hinge part of the game console when it's open with her tiny little fingers.

The more I think about it, the game of Battleship and its hit-or-miss song and dance routine are the perfect analogy for daily life with young children.  One minute they're planning something spectacular, the next they're quarreling.  Sometimes there are warning volleys.  Sometimes not.  If only I had a radar screen to steer clear of troubled waters.  At least I have a life jacket.

diamonds and purls

You think you know someone, and then wham! you find out you're mistaken.

Take my baby sister, who turns 18 today. She knits. Who knew?! Not me. But she does -- beautifully. She's learning to knit and probably knows what the term "purl" means without having to Google it.

That's not all. She writes. She cooks. She writes about cooking. She sings. She plays a fierce (in a good way) game of chess and is happy to teach her nephew the strategies she's honed over many matches. She is a multi-talented, ever more beautiful young woman poised to take on the world with a solid foundation and a retinue of people who love and pray for her every day.

It's been my delight to know the girl I used to call "Babycakes", and it's my honor to know the woman she is becoming.

I pray she will always seek the Father's will for her life, ever confident in his love for her as well as ours.

it's a school night.

We've reached the end of an era.  Tomorrow the elder lad will start kindergarten at a parish school, which will usher in a new season for our family.  On his last day of summer vacation, he seemed to have a lot of fun digging in the dirt with his brother, playing a game of chess with his auntie, going to Target with my mom, and holding his baby sister.  I think he's both excited to start school and understandably nervous about the unknown.  I know I am for him!

I wonder if I have made the most of the time I've had him at home with me.  I've tried to, but still I wonder if I've done enough.  There have been many times when it's been obvious that he was up for more of a challenge than I was able to provide at that moment because of needing to tend to his younger siblings or some other obligation I had.  This is part of life, and developing the skills of self-motivation and initiative are very important.  I hope I've given him enough of a framework within which to cultivate those skills.

He's clearly ready for the experience kindergarten will provide.  While I haven't discerned the call to be his teacher in a home school setting, my beloved and I will always be his primary teachers.  We're not abdicating that role to someone else; we will support and collaborate with the teachers at his school in the educational process. 

As much as I may fret over whether I've been able to meet his intellectual needs to this point, I have to trust that we have done our best (and will continue in this endeavor) to form his eternal soul, teaching him how to live as a child of God, with his family and the larger community, and how to listen for the voice of God calling him to grow more and more into the person he was created to be.  We do this with all our love and care, and take as many opportunities as are afforded us to tangibly let him know of our love for him as the person God made him.

It'll be an early start for him in the morning, as he and my beloved (who will be taking him to school in the mornings) will need to hit the road earlier than they're both used to for the stop-light laden drive across town.  The three younger bambini and I will pick the lad up after school, snacks in hand, anxious to hear how it went but (here's hoping anyway) not overbearing in our quest to find out.

Clueless as I am to this whole big-kid school thing, I'm having some trouble settling down for the evening (if that isn't obvious), trying to take care of everything but certain that I've forgotten or overlooked something.  I need to give it a rest, though, and turn my worries over to God in prayer, because it's a school night...