Hmmm
Apparently, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Either that or I have a toddler who is obsessed with Mama’s shoes.
A Little Excitement
We had a little excitement here yesterday. It started off when I lit a very nice scented candle from my mom.
I want you all to know that I practice safe candling. I trim my wicks. I keep the lit candle on the safe, heat proof stove top. I light them with one of those red, clicking lighter things, which I carefully leave on the counter so that the hot tip won’t damage anything in the drawer. And I never leave a lit candle unattended. No siree, I sit there and watch the thing burn. Ok, maybe not that last one. But in general, I’m very careful with my candles. After all, we’ve already had to move once because we flooded our house, I can’t imagine the housing office being too pleased with us if we burn down this one.
Anyway, my candle is burning safely in the kitchen, wafting lovely smells of cookie dough through out the house. Boo and Pumpkin Girl had been playing upstairs, then came down to tell me what they wanted for lunch. Mac and cheese, of course. So I set some water to boil and walked away. A few minutes later, Boo said, “Ew! What’s that awful smell?” Now, we don’t call him Melodramatic Boy for nothing. He’s also very particular about smells and Pumpkin Girl and I couldn’t burn our favorite Christmastime scented candle because it would cause Boo to writhe around on the floor in mock agony. So I’m sceptical about this “awful smell.” I don’t smell anything, besides the candle, but I go check it out.
Do you remember how I very carefully set the red lighter thingy on the counter to cool? Right next to the stove? Well, it’s handle was thisclose to touching the boiling pot of water and was melting and smoking and sending the most obnoxious smell into the house.
You know those things are filled with lighter fluid, right? Flammable lighter fluid.
Now I happen to be extraordinarily calm in the face of disaster. Except for one incident when I was 8 and ran into a building during an earthquake. But that was 20-odd years ago and I’ve learned a bit since then.
So I very calmly turned off the stove. I used a wooden spoon to move the hot, melting lighter thingy away from the pot. I got a clean, metal pot, filled it with water. I licked my finger to touch the lighter, which wasn’t too hot, so I stuck it’s melting end, which happened to be the part with the fluid, into the water. Szzzzz.
I shooed the children outside, turned on the fan and opened all the doors.
I don’t have a picture of the melted lighter thingy to share with you, mostly because I’m kind of embarrassed.
You’d think that would be enough for one day. Sadly, no.
Later in the evening, one of our hermit crabs decided to 
become a nudist. This is very, very bad for crabs. While they are hard and crustacean-y on the parts you can see, they are soft and weird looking inside their shell. Kind of like those symbiont Trill things from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Not that I ever watch that show. My husband is the Star Trek Geek around here, thank you very much. And I most certainly was not upset that Counselor Troi and Worf never got together and he ended up marrying that Trill-host girl. Not that I know who Counselor Troi or Worf or Dax the Trill-host girl are.
Anyway, so I found one of our hermit crabs sitting naked on top of the rock structure that the children gave the crabs for Christmas. Being the picture of calm in the face of disaster, I calmly told my husband that one of the crabs was out of his shell and I needed his help. Calm is one thing, but no way was I touching the weird looking naked crab.
I quickly went to the Hermit Crab Association message boards and found out what we needed to do. The folks on this message board are great, by the way, even if they are crazy in love with their hermit crabs like some people are with dogs and cats.
As soon as we opened the crabitat, the crab stuffed itself into one of the crevices of the rock structure. I found it’s abandoned shell, which I put into a small pyrex measuring cup. Philip tried gently prying the crab out of the rocks with a chop stick, but in the end we just picked up the rock structure and shook the crab into the cup. We added a couple of more shells for him to choose from and left him alone.
He picked a different shell for awhile, then moved back into his original one. We set up a little isolation chamber for him in the tank, just in case he’s sick. We used empty CD cases as walls because they are slick and too high for the crabs to climb.
When crabs go naked, they very often die, but so far ours is ok. The thing is, crabs don’t go naked unless they are bothered by something. I suspect the noxious fumes from the melted lighter.
Overheard…
Pumpkin Girl: Don’t shoot the baby!
(Mama’s eyebrow shoots up)
Boo: Well, it’s going to be a hard shot to make.
<insert Boy-Made Gun Noise here>
Boo: I missed the baby but got the snake!
You’ll be glad to know that Pumpkin put a cap over her baby’s head to protect her and Boo was able to shoot the head off the snake without hurting the baby. And seeing as how they were all 2 feet away from me, I have also lived to blog another day.
I moved again!
Well, I made the switched to WordPress and hopefully this will be my last ever blog move. The only way to reach this blog now is www.themacandcheesechronicles.com.
Here is the correct feed for the new location: http://themacandcheesechronicles.com/feed/ which should work with Bloglines, Google reader or which ever feed reader makes you happy. Thanks for sticking with me.
I think I’ll like my new home. Almost everything is moved over, I just need to hang some pictures – literally- and paint and put up curtains. As soon as I get it all figured out, it’ll pretty much look like my old blog or better.
Be Right Back
I’m working on some changes here at the ol’ Mac and Cheese Chronicles. Stay with me, I’ll be right back!
If you’re reading this on a feedreader, you might want to mark this post Keep As New or star it or something. If you don’t see a new post from me by Friday (5-18), then click here: The Mac and Cheese Chronicles for an update. Thanks
Welcome to the new Mac and Cheese Chronicles!
Welcome to the new Mac and Cheese Chronicles! I expect to be back up and running in a few days.
Corner of the Dining Room
For my first Cluttered Corner of My Home, I picked a fairly easy one. This is a corner of my dining room:
Doesn’t everyone store extra TVs on their dining room floor? And isn’t that the loveliest flooring you’ve ever seen?
This little space took me about a week, but it was a very busy week and I wasn’t able to work on it every day. My husband was very helpful and would even volunteer to get that corner done. I couldn’t have done it without his help and motivation.
So here it is now:
Same lovely walls and floor, but the mess is gone! The cuckoo clock was in one of the boxes stored here, so we hung it up and got it going again. We made a huge effort not to just move things around but to actually put them away. Wow, what a concept! In doing so, we needed to make room for that little TV and as a result, a totally different corner got cleaned up, too.
Just one less eyesore in our house and hearing our cuckoo clock after 6 months of it being in a box is literally music to our ears!
First Communion
Boo made his First Holy Communion yesterday. I could try to say something insightful and poignant, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. I do want to say that we were very blessed to have my parents and my cousin here with us. And of our little Catholic homeschooling group, 3 of the families had First Communicants and the other families came to the same Mass in support. It was so special to be surrounded by the important people in Boo’s life.
I hung up our Easter garden flag for the day. Boo had a new suit, complete with a cross tie-tack from my grandma. Pumpkin Girl looks more and more like me every day. Bip is looking like a proud member of the toddler maffia. He refused to wear any other shoes but his red Mickey Mouse crocs.
Boo was delightfully surprised to find that his banner was actually hanging right up front. You can see part of it on the left.
Amen!
A Tough Day
We started off Thursday sort of early and with much dread and anticipation. It was the day scheduled for Bip’s renal ultrasound and voiding cystogram (VCUG). We were making the trek to Bethesda Naval Medical Center instead of Walter Reed because Walter Reed no longer has a pediatric radiologist.
The day started going badly when we left late, then our GPS routed us through DC before we realized what was happening. Our first appointment was later than we thought it was and so managed to arrive on time anyway. We were then kept waiting for an hour. Let me remind you that Bip is only 21 months old.
Finally we are called back for the ultrasound. Bip doesn’t want his shirt removed, doesn’t want to lie down, doesn’t like the gel. He’s screaming and kicking and writhing and saying, "Mama! Ow!" The tech finishes up and leaves to consult the doctor. We clean up and comfort Bip. The tech returns and tells us he needs more pictures. Here we go again…This little scene is played out 3 more times, screaming toddler, tech leaves, we calm down Bip, tech returns for more pictures. Forty-five minutes later and Bip is fervently pointing to the door and signing "all done." The tech tells us that the "super doppler" he is using picks up every motion and he needs the baby to be still. Philip and I both said, "That’s not going to happen. We’re done."
Nobody seems to be able to tell us where to go for our next appointment. It’s usually done in radiology, so that’s where we go. We check in, an hour late of course, and sit down to wait. We give Bip some juice and a snack and he settles down. We’re there about 15 minutes when they decide we actually need to be at nuclear medicine, which is right around the corner from ultrasound.
Sigh.
At nuclear medicine we are informed that we need to go to pediatrics where they will insert a catheter into Bip, then return with him to nuclear medicine for the rest of the test.
I can only imagine the looks on our faces.
Philip was so stunned that he said to the guy, "Let me get this straight. You want us to go to peds, get the catheter put in, which is going to cause him to scream and kick, then walk back down the hall, take the elevator back up to this floor and come back here?"
Oh yes, we were informed, that’s how they always do it. And we were assured that they would tape it to Bip’s leg.
Now, this will be the 5th VCUG done on one of our children, and I even had them done as a child and NOT ONCE have they ever inserted the catheter in a different room than where the test is done.
Would it be acceptable to have an adult have a catheter inserted, then wander around the hospital to a different location for the test? I don’t think so. It shouldn’t be acceptable for a child, either.
But we bravely went to pediatrics. It was now noon. We were informed by the receptionist that the nurse was at lunch and to return in an hour. Then the nurse walks by, and the receptionist called to her to confirm that she was at lunch. The nurse said, "Yep, I’m at lunch, they’ll have to come back." It wasn’t what she said, but how she said it. She was so rude and disdainful that I actually said to the receptionist, "Wow, that was really rude."
Philip said, "That’s it, we’re done. We’re leaving."
Bethesda is supposed to be the military’s premier hospital. They may be in some areas, but not for this. Oh, and we were told that they don’t even have a pediatric radiologist.
Thursday was a tough day for all of us, but today will be better.
On Being a Catholic Using Sonlight
I mentioned earlier that I enjoy reading the Sonlight Curriculum catalog and I know I’ve mentioned that many times that we use Sonlight. I think most of you know that we’re Catholic. Jamie asked me for advice at how to use Sonlight as a Catholic.
First, let me admit that I am not a Sonlight expert. We have used Sonlight (SL) for our entire homeschool experience which as I write this, is 4 years: pre-K through 2nd.
I love using SL because of all the wonderful books, many of which I remember fondly from my own childhood. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of them myself! I also enjoy the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason – living books, short lessons, narrations – and the SL curriculum fits it very well.
To add to all of that wonderfulness, SL is a Christian company! Which means that their books are carefully selected to represent a Christian viewpoint. I never have to worry about the content of a SL book.
However, SL is a non-Catholic company, which I guess means that they are Protestant. OK. So we’re not going to have any books about Mary or the Saints. There are going to be very few, if any, mentions of going to Mass or priests or saying the Rosary. I’m OK with that. And I have heard, though not personally experienced for myself, that some books in later Cores are misrepresent Catholicism. We are only on Core 1, so we will deal with these issues if and when then come up. I actually think that this could lead to a good discussion about our Catholic faith and how it differs from other Christians.
I was surprised recently to read that another Catholic homeschooling mom will deliberately avoid books in the SL catalog marked with an X “because they are religious, therefore Protestant.” That got me thinking. I went and looked at the SL catalog. One of their many book annotations is an X to let you know that the book is from a Christian publisher. To me, that does not necessarily equate to a religious book, but maybe that’s semantics. I looked up which books in Pre-K, K and Core 1 were labeled with an X. Some of them weren’t surprising, a couple of them I would have given an equal chance of being from a secular publisher.
In the 3 cores that we have used, I have only excluded 2 books. One was their version of Mother Goose rhymes, which they have replaced this year. I thought it needed more pictures, and substituted the Richard Scarry version instead. The other book we didn’t read was Hero Tales, a collection of biographies of Protestant heroes. The only reason I eliminated it was because it was boring! In fact, many non-Catholics on the SL Forums eliminated this book, too, for the same reasons. I actually have no problem with my children learning about any brand of Christian heroes. All are called to do God’s work and we can learn from their examples.
Actually, that is how I approach all of SL books of a religious nature. The missionary stories have been excellent in teaching my children about the people around the world. The books have sparked discussions on how to treat people of other faiths. We have prayed for many of the peoples we read about. I have yet to find any of the books to be offensive to a Catholic. My personal opinion is that to summarily dismiss a book as being Protestant would be to miss out on many wonderful stories. Most of the time, you can never even tell the denomination of the Christian group being discussed. Those missionaries could very well be Catholic.
Now one book, Leading Little Children to God, did make mention of “the Lord’s Supper”, not meaning Mass, but – and I’m guessing here- a Protestant Eucharist service. We read it together and I simply made it clear that for us, that meant going to Mass and going to communion. Just a little tweaking in one chapter in an otherwise great children’s devotional. That chapter could even be skipped.
Another book, From Abeku to Zapotec, is a book about people without the Bible in their own language. Each page has a nice picture and maybe 2 or 3 paragraphs describing their lives. That’s it. The point of the whole book is that children pray for these people, that they may get Bibles in their own language. No need to miss out on this book just because it’s labeled with an X!
When it comes to the SL books, as a Catholic, you just need to decide for yourself what you are comfortable with. I would strongly recommend buying all the SL books in a Core(it gets you a good discount) and pre-reading the ones that may be questionable. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised. If not, that’s OK, too. You will almost certainly be able to find an acceptable substitute. Or, if your children are older, you may want to read the books anyway and discuss it from a Catholic perspective.
I do add some Catholic touches to our school. I use the Seton religious education books because I’m not completely happy with the RE classes at our church. I have the Loyola Book of Saints and Book of Heroes, which I used in place of Hero Tales and on various feast days.
I don’t really feel like every single subject needs to reflect our Catholicism. Math is math is math, you know? I use Horizons Math, which SL happens to sell, because it works for our family. The same with handwriting. We’re using Handwriting Without Tears because it works. I don’t like their cursive style, though, so I was about to switch to A Reason For Handwriting. But if my son is going to learn to cursive writing out passages from scripture, he might as well use Seton’s handwriting manual and write out Catholic Catechism. I’m rethinking this, though, as he’s really struggling with cursive. We
may go back to Handwriting Without Tears. At least he’ll be legible.
With any curriculum, you need to use what works for your family and put aside what doesn’t. There are more Catholic Sonlighters than you’d think, and you can ask for their input on the SL Forums, which you can get free access to for 30 days. I found one thread there that talked about some of the issues I’ve mentioned here: Sonlight and Catholic. There is also a Catholic Sonlighters Yahoo Group. The folks on that group would be very helpful in pointing out where things should be left out, edited or discussed.
Hopefully I’ve been helpful. Please feel free to ask more questions and I’ll try to answer as best as I can.