Confirmation!

As the twins prepared for the Sacrament of Confirmation, the director of religious described this sacrament as stirring up the Holy Spirit in your soul the way that chocolate syrup is stirred up into milk. You could leave it at the bottom of the glass, or you can stir it up. Well, they've been stirred!!!!!

Thomas Matthew and his sponsor and godmother Michele

Anthony George and his sponsor and our dear friend Paula

We gave the twins some general guidelines for choosing a Confirmation sponsor: try to pick someone you will know for the rest of your life and someone with whom you are comfortable discussing your faith and asking for guidance. Pick a mentor. They did a great job choosing.

Michele, Thomas and Bishop Michael Burbidge

Paula, Anthony and Bishop Burbidge

I know that bishops aren't chosen for their photogenic qualities, but we appreciate how photogenic and patient our bishop is. We were at the back of the line, and he was just as gracious and funny as if he hadn't been standing in the same spot, fully vested, unfed, and smiling for hours.

Since everyone was looking extra beautiful, we also took some belated Easter pictures.

Bill, Anthony, Thomas, Rachel
(and back-wrapped baby for the extra long Confirmation Mass win!)

Update around our house

Last weekend AHG, Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts
from our parish went camping at the Catholic Camporee.
All of our family came and had a great time climbing the
Alpine tower, doing a scavenger hunt and earning
the Fr. McGivney patch.

I thought to keep Dominic occupied with washing some dishes
like I had watched my friend do with her toddler a few days before.
Her son played happily for an hour while she and I had
tea and a chat. When I set up the chair near the sink for Dominic,
he immediately climbed up and in!

Now for something completely the same

Catholic Fun

Obviously, the announcement of the retirement of Benedict XVI came as a sad shock this morning. After Mass, my friends and I huddled in the rain talking it over and encouraging each other. Then my friend Alison came up with a brilliant plan: she is going to run a Lenten betting pool in which we pay in $5 to pick which continent the new pope will be from. Then, on St. Joseph's day we'll all meet for drinks and celebrate the winner. Gambling and drinking. I love being Catholic!

iTeam makes the paper

The boys' First Lego League team won the North Carolina state championship and made the local paper. They have been invited to compete in the North American Tournament at Legoland in California in May!

http://www.thepilot.com/news/2013/feb/01/county-team-takes-state-lego-crown/

Mardi Gras Miles

Maria decided to run the 5k without any training. She did very well.

Joseph strutting his stuff

James stayed at the front of the pack for the younger kids

Joseph and James after their 10 minute run. At the end of each lap they get a necklace

Cecilia ran 8 laps and then asked for her inhaler

Charles led the older runners for several laps

Annual homeschool post

Yesterday at the park, I told a friend who has special knowledge in the area that I have very recently discovered that some of my kids have dyslexia. I was standing with a mutual friend who is in the same boat as me. Friend #1's response was intended to be funny, and she said in a joking, exasperated tone, "What have you guys been doing all these years?" I admit, that comment pierced my soul. 

I think I was hurt by the implication that I had either been lazing around or not paying attention and that is why we have just figured this out. Since I first started teaching our kids to read, and we have 6 who read now, I have seen little indications that there was "something there" with them. We used a phonics based method to teach them to read and spell. I did try to teach them to form their letters correctly, put tails below the line and ascenders above, and not to confuse "b" and "d". I have pointed out mistakes and I made them recopy misspelled and poorly punctuated papers that we had to turn in to the school. Almost every paper they wrote, I wrote out first or typed into the computer. I helped them edit each paper line by line, talking through adjectives and adverbs, introductory phrases, transitions, and how to take "there is" out. And it didn't stop there. 

When I saw that they struggled to retain information from their text books, I read them out loud. When math had them stumped, I wrote out each step while they told me what to do next. And when I saw that their Language Arts standardized test scores didn't match what we thought they should achieve, I blamed myself for not trying hard enough (which I wasn't) and redesigned and retaught our spelling curriculum. 

I had to spell that out because I think over time I will forget the work I did to help my kids learn and only remember what I didn't do. I didn't teach spelling consistently when I was lying on the floor in the bathroom with hyper-emesis. I didn't knock down doors fighting for the kid who I knew needed speech therapy at age 4 but the health insurance considered him fine until he was 9. I told myself that letter reversals were normal at a young age and never tried to figure out what age they are no longer normal. I also had to spell it out because otherwise I would have overlooked the natural accommodations I made as a homeschooling mom who knew her kids well and knew their abilities and limits. 

This is my handwriting but their thoughts

When people new to homeschooling say that they think it's great because you can tailor the curriculum to each child, I always try to moderate their enthusiasm a bit. I explain that having 6 students at different ages makes it hard to design a unique curriculum for each child, so often you end up doing the same thing with each child at the same age. To me, this isn't really any different from a brick school which uses the same curriculum for the same grade each year. I don't want to discourage them, but I do want them to understand homeschooling reality.

But after the comment of what have you been doing all these years, I began to look at our curriculum a little differently. Foremost, I've seen the benefit of using a curriculum that insisted on phonics based reading. Otherwise, I don't think my kids would be able read at all. I've also seen the small changes I have made in day-to-day assignments by reading aloud or answering questions orally or grading compositions on content separately from mechanics or doing the writing for them or saying, "School's over. We'll do that tomorrow." I have tailored a curriculum that worked for our family into a curriculum that supported dyslexic children effortlessly. I'm going to remember that the next time someone gushes about homeschoolers being able to make the curriculum fit their family. And the next time someone asks, "What have you been doing all these years?"