Mother of Divine Grace

I'm tied in knots.  I'm obsessing again, fixated on the kids' schooling.  It is not what I want it to be!  I want to do Mother of Divine Grace with them.  I want to sit with each one and do the necessary things and juggle the schedule and be with them all all day.  I want to go to daily mass together again.  I want to read to Carolina and have her narrate back what she's heard.  I want to read aloud to them all.  I want to teach David and Carolina concrete math.  I want to explain grammar to John William in a way he will understand.  I want to have him reading and narrating, reading and narrating.  I want Sophie to be doing the same, and Madelyn to be reading and writing, reading and writing.  I at least want someone to be doing these things with them.  It doesn't have to be me.  I have enjoyed being with my three little ones and having the time to change diapers in a timely fashion and feed them when they're hungry and read them picture books.

But I don't want the big kids to come home after a long day with a backpack heavy as a bag of bricks on their backs, to do homework all evening and have no time to play outside or pursue their interests.  They don't have time to take piano lessons or go to choir practice or play a sport, not if we are going to have dinner, pray the rosary, and get in bed at a decent hour.

I would be willing to sacrifice the time, perhaps, if I felt they were getting the education I long for them to have.  I have always been on a quest for this education since we started homeschooling, and I agonized about it to my husband every day for seven years, until he finally got involved and sent them to this school... this school that I found when I was searching for some kind of Catholic classical educational option up here in Greenville.

My friend came to visit yesterday. She homeschools with Mother of Divine Grace.  Her kids are a rare breed.  They glow.  They have a generosity of spirit that I have not often seen.  Her boys, 15 and 13 years old, play with my 9-year-old son without a hint of reluctance.  They played twelve hours of football yesterday in the front yard.  Somehow she has taught them to give themselves as a gift to those around them.  Somehow she has trained them to look for opportunities to offer something to others instead of focus on themselves.  It's quite impressive.

I look at the formation and education her children are getting, and I like what I see so much.  It doesn't make me feel bad about what we are doing, but I do feel sad.  She said something about sending her oldest away to college.  She said she felt like a limb had been cut off, like someone had died.  And she said now every moment is precious, every bickering fight, every inconvenience, every moment.  It's not long enough.

It makes me think I only have five more years with Madelyn at home.  I want them to be good years.  This is for real.  I want to do it right.  We've only got one chance to live these five years together as a family.  What are we going to do?

I want to see my kids being schooled with Mother of Divine Grace.  We could go off and do it on our own.  We have been doing that for seven years before this.  Of course we were always in some kind of group.  But we were homeschooling. It took me so long to be open to someone else setting the curriculum.  Finally I decided Mother of Divine Grace does education the way I feel is the best way, and I could trust them and outsource some of the work.  But now we find ourselves in this school, this Battle of Lepanto school.  Tommy, the headmaster (yes, Tommy!), has the outlook we want.  But the education is not there yet.

Tommy and his family are coming for lunch November 17.  That is the feast of St. Anthony.  I'm going to pray to St. Anthony of Padua, worker of miracles, for a crazy miracle.  I'm going to ask for a hybrid school that does Mother of Divine Grace, all the way up to November 17.  How do you like them apples?

A Thought Before Bed

I have so many things to say.  I went to Kansas with Teresa and saw my cousins at TJ's wedding.  They all have a story.  There are too many to write about in the fifteen minutes I have right now before I crawl into bed.  I just finished the chocolate covered strawberries for tomorrow, and it's one a.m.  I'd like to tell you about Noel.  He's struggling with depression.  I'd mention Martha. She's a prophetess.  She's wants to do whatever God puts in her to do, and sometimes she's way out there and driving her family crazy, but her heart!  She is willing to die for God.  

I'd mention this house.  It fits us like a glove.  I never thought I'd feel this way about a house.  I never knew what it meant to have "a few nice things."  You can't have nice things if you don't know how to take good care of them.  It helped to get rid of everything I didn't really care about.

I want to tell you about the move to South Carolina and sending the kids to school for the first time after homeschooling all these years, and how I cried for the first month and felt like I had no purpose in life anymore but that now we feel called to really support this school and do something no one else is doing:  commit.

But what is sticking out to me the most right now is Mary and how she followed me around while we prayed the rosary. She had those little pink sunglasses on the top of her head and her purse over her arm, and she was "nursing" her baby just like I was and pacing and jiggling just like I was, just like she always is following Mommy and "helping" Mommy, doing whatever it is I do, like I'm the model for everything she wants to be.  I can tell her to take the wet clothes from the washer, put them in the dryer, and start the dryer, and at two years old, she can do it.