Christmas 2017

After Christmas Vigil Mass at our church.

My first Wigilia :)

 For the first Wigilia (Christmas Eve Supper), I tried to keep to some traditions.  The 12 sides I prepared: deviled eggs, potato and egg based salat (salatka jarzynowa), barszcz (the red "soup" in the little white bowls), croisants, saurkraut with mushrooms, pumpernickle bread, herring in tomato sauce, sardines in tomato sauce, mixed berry compote & mixed berry jam (both home made), plain ole boiled potatoes, and for the world of me I don't remember the 12th dish!  The foods themselves weren't all traditional, but their number (12) stood for both the 12 months of the coming year, and the 12 apostles of Jesus.  There were no meats, per the traditional Catholic Friday fast, which allows for fish.  I started cooking on Friday, and finished on Sunday - and never stressed out!  (If you know me, you know cooking of any sort stresses me out! lol)

A couple sides still covered, but here's the table.

 We shared the traditional oplatek, which is essentially an unconsecrated host - the same one we use for Holy Communion during Mass.  Apparently priests used to send Communion home for Christmas so that homebound relatives could receive Our Lord at Christmastime.  Since then, it's become a symbolic tradition and the "wafers" are no longer consecrated (meaning they are not the same as the ones we receive at Mass because Our Lord isn't in them.)

Natalia sharing the oplatek with Antonio.

Daddy and Natalia exchanging well wishes (and oplatek) for the new year.

 For Christmas Day, we visited my parents and met up with my sister as well.  She is quite elusive, but so everyone believes that I do indeed have a sister (lol!), here are a couple photos with her in them!

Christmas Day at my parents'.

 My mom cooked up a storm, as usual.  Yummy food was had by all :)

My sister, mom, dad, Oscar w/ Antonio, Natalia.

My sister showing us how to use the loom she just got me for Christmas!

 We held out on giving the kids presents since we knew they would be showered with gifts at my parents'.  Their gifts easily held them over until we had them open a couple gifts from us on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and Epiphany.

Natalka with her bag of treats!

We also wanted to keep the focus on Jesus' birthday, and not an excuse to get stuff. It's a work in progress... hopefully by next Christmas, we'll have a better system in place.

Dear Antonio

Dear Antonio,

As your first birthday approaches, I can't help but consider how my life - and I - have changed since you joined our family.  Not only did my faith come back as soon as I was pregnant with you, but I have also been forced to reconsider several assumptions about what I thought were best-practices in parenting.  Thanks to becoming a mother of two, I have a new appreciation for other mothers, mothers with more than one child, mothers who parent differently from me.  I no longer judge them.  

My faith was destroyed in the aftermath of postpartum depression and anxiety that I had after Natalia was born.  Try as I may, I couldn't regain it.  Then you came along, and I instantly knew you were here to stay, that you were a boy, and ... I suspect you may be called to the priesthood someday.  (No pressure!)

Antonio, you started to walk shortly after turning 10 months.  You already had 8 teeth by then.  That's when you started shaking your head "no" when you were full or if I tried to offer you oatmeal without a piece of fruit on the spoon!  You grin from ear to ear when I show you the sign for "milk", knowing you're about to get nursed.  You climb on everything and you're so curious about the world around you.  Everything is still new to you, and it's a joy to watch you discover God's great creation.  You smile and laugh easily, especially when tickled under your arms or on your inner thighs!  You play "kosi lapki" and love to hear me sing it while you clap.  And boy do you love your big sister!  You look for her when she's not around.  You touch her face as you examine her up close.  You grab things out of each other's hands already, but you do play together and enjoy each other's company.

You're not a big fan of the potty.  You hate having your diaper changed, too.  For the sake of peace, I've had to put cloth diapering, line drying laundry, and elimination communication on hold.  I also have been less than inspired when it comes to feeding you.  You love solid food, but just like your sister, you seem to be a foodie - something your mom is not.  So I don't let you feed yourself nearly as frequently as I did Natalia.  The mess is just too much for me.  

You sleep with me and nurse a few times each night, which is no big deal as long as you have a few sips and turn back to sleep.  Some nights you think you're at an all-night cafe, which is not conducive to your mom's back health, nor does it contribute to sufficient sleep.  But otherwise, I can't complain, so I never know what to say to people who ask how you're sleeping.  Better than if you were in a crib all alone in another room, that's for sure.  But I don't like to ruffle any feathers.  Not anymore, anyway!

My hopes for you are that you will always be as intrigued about the world as you are now, and that you will always welcome everyone with a kind smile, as you do now.  May you discern your calling in life earlier rather than later, so that you can go about the business of serving God with the joy and determination that are evident in your personality.

We named you Antonio Fernando.  Antonio means "worthy of praise", and we want your life to be a testament of God's great love for us; may your life show that God is worthy of praise.  Fernando means "adventurer".  Saint Anthony of Padua (born Fernando Martins de Bulhoes) is patron of lost things, and he has come through for us three times already. Once, he helped me find the becik (baptismal pillow) you were to be baptised in, as mommy foggy brian crept in and I couldn't remember where I was "safe keeping" it prior to your baptism. Another time, Natalia found her sunglasses after asking St. Anthony to help her find them the night before. Most recently, he arranged for Daddy to forget  to take the recycling to the curb on pick-up day, and when I went to take out recycling, I found a poem I had written and lost several days earlier, which was giving me much grief.  When we chose Antonio Fernando, we envisioned a holy adventurer :)  Peraps a missionary priest?

Of course, now that you're here and I've had time to consider what a religious vocation would entail, namely being separated from you for extended periods of time, I'm sort of eating my words.  But in the end, it's not my will but God's that shall prevail.  I am so grateful to God for having blessed me with you.  I didn't think I could handle two children.  I didn't think I could find enough room in my heart for both of you, but with God, all things are possible!

I love you my little darling.  My little cuddle bug.  So much!

Love, Mamusia

Catholic Ecclectic Unschooling?!

I recently have had two realizations about our approach to homeschooling.  I'm slowly starting to take ownership of it and finding what works and what doesn't.  I'm glad that I'm using these preschool years to do this trial and error, so that once we start to report for kindergarten, we can hit the ground running.

Here is a list of subject areas that I am currently working with when planning out lessons for our preschool.

1. practical life skills
2. sensorial
3. literacy
4. numeracy
5. nature/science
6. culture/geography
7. health
8. physical education
9. music & music appreciation
10. art & art appreciation
11. languages (ASL, Polish, Spanish)
12. literature & poetry
13. religion (faith, morals, liturgy, prayer)

I come back to the way I utilize lesson plans after first discussing the first big overhaul of our approach to homeschooling, faith.

At last Sunday's homily, our pastor drove home the point that Christ needs to be at the center of our lives, and that religion cannot be merely one of the areas of our life, something I've been guilty of for sure.  The first thing that popped into my mind was that we needed to rethink our homeschooling approach. I pulled out the book on Catholic homeschooling that I got at the Catholic homeschool curriculum fair we attended and started reading.

We always said that we decided to homeschool for various reasons, none of which were religious.  But that doesn't mean that we are stuck with a secular homeschool for life!  One of the things that really struck me so far from the book was relating how children sent to secular schools to learn "real subjects" and only hearing about God's presence in their lives on the periphery come to think that God has nothing to do with what they're learning in school!  Science and History in particular have a way of pretending that God doesn't exist that is detrimental to a person's world view.

As catholic Christians, we believe that God created the universe and everything in it.  There is nothing science can discover that doesn't directly point to the glory of God!  Evolution (a theory, by the way, not fact) can nonetheless point to the fact that God's days are not limited to our 24-hour-periods, and perhaps the creation story is not something that happened thousands (or millions) of years ago, but rather something that is ongoing.  Just like God forms us in our mothers' wombs, but He doesn't stop working on us after birth!  To study science without acknowledging God's hand in it is to betray our Christian world-view.

Likewise with history.  To look at the events of human history without addressing the role of sin, virtue, and the human longing for something greater than itself is to again miss entirely how God is present in our daily circumstances.  Not that He orchestrates what happens, but that He is there with us.  That people turn to Him, and He listens.  That people turn away from Him, and He forgives (though not without meting out justice).  Eliminating God from a history curriculum is pretending that humans don't need God.  Again, this is a total contradiction of our Christian world-view.

Other subjects also can either serve to build up the spirit of a young Chrisitan or not.  What we read penetrates our imaginations.  Are we reading about what is true, good, and beautiful?  Or are we reading merely what has always been taught?  Just because certain works of literature are famous doesn't make them crucial to read.  Likewise for art and music.  I agree that there is an element of cultural competency that needs to be addressed, meaning that a person's education ought to prepare them to at least be aware of the existence of things that have shaped our society in meaningful ways - for better or worse.  After all, we study wars rather than ignoring them because of the violence, death, and evil it portrays.

But if presented without any commentary from the perspective of the catholic Christian parent, the child is left to possibly conclude that anything famous in the secular world is "good", or "true", or "beautiful".  I don't know if I completely agree with the adage, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  Some things are just plain ugly.  The same applies to what is good and true.  We live in a relativist society.  I am certainly a victim of this mentality.  There is no objective truth, therefore there's no objective goodness. Virtue is whatever best suits me, the individual.

***
I'm returning now to the idea of lesson planning.  I tried unschooling for several months when Antonio was born, and I was amazed how Natalia continued to learn in various areas without my so much as lifting a finger.  Yet after those few months, I decided that we couldn't unschool long term because one of the motivating factors for me to educate my children at home is that I get to teach them!

So I make lesson plans.  I try to make sure certain subject areas are covered.  I attempt to figure out the best schedule to implement.  And over and over I realize that everything always looks perfect on paper, but never works out in real life.  Finally it occurred to me that while I love to plan and organize, I also love to stay with a natural flow of learning, following whatever sparks Natalia's curiosity.  I tried to sit down with her and do X for a set amount of time one time, and it immediately felt artificial and not at all educational!  Perhaps this will change as she gets older.  But for now, for preschool, I'm starting to understand what my homeschooling method really is, and it's not any of the official methods out there.  I've said we're ecclectic before, but I think I fially understand what that means to me.

Ecclectic homeschooling to me means several things.  1) I make plans and goals so I know what to look out for in terms of library materials, outings, etc.  I plan and organize because I enjoy the very process of planning and organizing.  I do not intend to meticulously implement any of my plans, and I expect them to be altered and updated periodically. 2) I observe the natural interests and inclinations of Natalia.  I answer her questions and find resources for subjects she shows an interest in.  I do not interrupt her indpendent play unless absolutely necessary (say, it's time to leave for church).  3) I return to my plans periodically and take note of what has already been learned.  I then can move on to the next set of goals in a given subject as I reimagine the lesson plans.

So there is definitely a strong component of unschooling that remains.  I think the only thing that isn't "pure unschooling" with us is that I do have subjects in mind for Natalia to be exposed to, and certain skills and knowledge that I do intend for her to learn.  Nothing we do is done against her desires, though.  She is loving memorizing various things, so why wouldn't I take advantage of this stage of her development and try to surround her with things I think are good for every person to know by heart?  (Basic geography comes to mind.  She knows her contients and oceans, and we're slowly moving into the concepts of countries.  I'm not sure that she would've become interested in geography if I hadn't brought it up and if I wouldn't continue to bring in resources to build on this interest.)

I like labels, and perhaps that's what this is for me - a labeling of what was all along.  Ecclectic unschooling with a hint of classical?  Because I am drawn to some of the features of the classical approach/Charlotte Mason.  What finally did it for me and forced me to cut my emotional ties with CM is the feeling of guilt over not spending hours outside.  It just isn't for us, not where we live.  I couldn't shake the guilt, so I shook the label instead!

I also think that unit studies may be making an appearance.  As I think about incorporating God into our subjects and not just keeping Him in "religion", I instantly think of making unit studies around the liturgical year.  I see unit studies as supplemental to a core curriculum, though.  I don't want to tie myself to the idea of forcing ever subject into every unit study.  History and science may need to unfold along separate timelines!

I'm probably overthinking the whole preschool homeschooling thing, but it's for a good cause - the whole education of both my kids.  I think Antonio will benefit from this time, as I will hopefully have an idea of what crucial elements to include in his preschool in a couple of years.  I also think Natalia will benefit because by the time we have to officially report her home education in two years, we will have ironed out the details and can hit the ground running without having to second guess ourselves.

Speaking of state reporting, I had to finagle the terminology a little to get from the list of mandatory subjects to the list of our home school subjects above.  The mandatory subjects in our state are as follows:

1. language arts (literacy, literature/poetry)
2. math (numeracy)
3. science (nature/science)
4. social studies (culture/geography/history)
5. health (nutrition, safety, hygiene/disease control, exercise, rest, stress avoidance)
6. physical education (gross motor skills)
7. art (& art appreciation)
8. music (& music appreciation)

Confession time  - the title to this post just occurred to me, so I think I will address the nuances of this "methodology" in a future post.

Catholic Preschooler "Curriculum"

I've been pleased with the progress of Natalia's growth in terms of spirituality, but I've noticed that she is now old enough to really benefit from some direct teaching.  The idea hit me when she asked who God was.  (Picture me with a blank stare and mouth on ground.) What do you mean?  We pray every day!  We participate in Mass every week!  We sing hymns, we talk about Jesus, right and wrong, say/sing grace.... It occurred to me that this is all great stuff, but it doesn't answer the basic question - who is God?

Now, without getting all philosophical, as I know that's not the point of her question, I started to think of where to start in teaching her our faith.  She is too young for the religious ed at our church - another year to go, it seems!  So here's what I've come up with as a starting point.

Basic Tenets of Catholicism

Basic Beliefs (faith, based on the Apostle's Creed)

God exists, God is Triune, God is creator of everything (us included), God desires to live with us in eternal happiness, God brings us to Himself upoon our death thanks to Jesus.  We can call God our Father because He made us and loves us and takes care of us.

Jesus opened the gates of heaven by dying on the cross and resurrecting, we will receive resurrected bodies also after we die, Jesus taught us how to live to please God and therefore get along with people both here and especially in Heaven, not everyone listens to Jesus or wants to do the hard work of getting along with others, Jesus continues to make Himself available to us in the Eucharist

God is also present to us as the Holy Spirit (not limited to the material manifestation of the Eucharist - no, I won't be using these big words with a three year old ;) ), we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us make difficult decisions, or to give us strength or courage to do something that is right but difficult to do, the Holy Spirit inspired various people to write down truths about God and His plan in a big book called the Bible

The Bible tells the story of how God made us and loves us even when we make mistakes, how we should live our lives in order to please Him, and why it's important to do so. The Catholic Church helps us undersand the Bible and allows us to meet Jesus "face to face" in the Eucharist.

Saints are people who are very close friends of Jesus, and we should all want to become saints.  We can talk to the Saints in heaven just like we talk to people still on Earth, asking them to talk to God for us and helping us with our lives.

When we make a mistake, God still loves us.  When we make a mistake, it is important to try apologize and try to make it right.  When we get older, we start going to Confession so that the priest can help us try to do better next time.


How to Live (morality)

The first gift God gave us is life.  The second is free will.  We must choose to love and obey God.

10 Commandments
1. love God more than anything else,
2. respect God's name
3. visit God weekly on Sundays at Mass
4. honor and obey parents and respect all your elders
5. never hurt anyone through your actions or words
6. respect yourself and others
7. don't take what isn't yours without permission
8. tell the truth
9. be happy with the relationships you have and don't be jealous of other people
10. be happy with the things you have and don't be jealous of what other people have

7 virtues
1. chastity/purity
2. temperance/self-restraint
3. charity/giving
4. diligence/integrity
5. patience
6. kindness
7. humility

precepts of the Church (minimum requirements)
1. attend Mass weekly
2. Confession annually
3. receive Communion during Easter
4. fast/abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
5. support the church financially)

How Catholics Worship (liturgy)

We celebrate how great God is by visiting Him and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.  We learn about God's will for our lives by listening to the readings, we pray together as a family of children of God, we sing, we demonstrate how important God is by kneeling and bowing at key moments during the celebration.

Preparation - review of appropriate behavior, proper dress
Blessing self with holy water - facing altar
Genuflecting before entering pew (and when leaving pew, except when going to Communion)
Facing altar at all times, most especially during the Liturgy of the Eucharist
Paying attention and not distracting others from paying attention
Singing with others
Kneeling/standing/sitting with others
Communal Our Father
Sign of Peace
Donation basket
Jesus entering the physical realm in the consecrated host
Communion line to greet Jesus (before 1st Communion)
silent prayer/watching how others reverence Jesus in the Eucharist
Genuflecting, Sign of Cross when leaving

Prayer

Prayer is talking to God and/or the Saints.

Sign of the Cross - how, why (to remind us to think about God, love God, and do God's will), when (before and after prayer, when entering and leaving church)

Our Father
Hail Mary
Glory Be
Grace
Angel of God
Angelus
Spontaneous prayer from the heart
Examination of Conscience (thank you, I'm sorry, please)

Apostle's Creed (next step, not yet)

Natalka's Preschool April

Still in unschooling mode, though not for long.  Plans are in the works for a more intentional, guided early education, focusing on a holistic approach without premature academics.

Antonio's placenta going into the kids' palm.

 
Natalia's and Antonio's placentas are both buried in this little palm, as a reminder of how they nourished them and now help nourish the palm.

Gardening has begun! We are giving it a go!

planting green onion cutlings

 

Learning about grey water use.  Antonio's bath water being used to water our pine trees. Water conservation, baby!

 
 



Recently found out Natalka has a Sanguine temperament, which includes a need to be around other people.  Very social, I could've told you that.  Her favorite activity seems to be walking hand in hand with her friends!

 

Preparing for Easter with egg coloring and card making....

 
 
.... as well as helping with the traditional Polish Easter food basket, brought to church to be blessed.

 

Speaking of being blessed, here's our little Saint in the Making singing to Jesus in the Adoration Chapel and playing with her Resurrection cut-outs.

 

Spotted a bird on our nature walk

loves picking wildflowers

who doesn't love the sandbox

been asking for a bike...

touch screen art at the library

helping in the kitchen by cutting up mushrooms

private moment with Babcia via Skype

holding baby alligator at a homeschooling fair

learning to share with her baby brother

Natalka's Preschool February-March

Let's start with the most difficult lessons anyone ever has to learn - those surrounding death.  Natalka experienced the funeral of her great-grandfather, as well as saying goodbye to our beloved family dog, Bigosia.  In an effort to prepare her with the little time we had, there were books read both on grief and life cycles, specifically in the animal kingdom.  There was also talk about our religious beliefs regarding eternal life.  Very hard lessons, lessons not found in an academic setting, yet so much more important.

Visiting the park where, almost exactly a year ago, she participated in the spreading of her Abuelo Henry's ashes.

Making friends at a cemetery.

Sitting on Abuela's lap at bisabuelo Yeyo's funeral.

Just days after returning from the funeral trip, it was time to say goodbye to our faithful companion.

Covered shivering Bigosia.

Trip to vet before getting the bad news.

Allowed to walk Bigosia all by herself.  

Offering treats for the road.

Saying goodbye.

One thing I've learned through this difficult time is that perspective is everything.  You'll notice the smiles on Natalia's face even as we continued talking about what was happening.  I had to paint Bigosia's last day as somehow special, something Bigosia was looking forward to, being released from her pain and the confines of her broken body, her spirit free to roam the cosmos, at Jesus's side.  There had to be a little creative theology there, but nothing too far from what I believe to be essentially true.

But there were other learning opportunities these two months as well.  The first was a starting point for a religious identity.  Being present at her brother's baptism provided an opportunity to read a few books on Catholicism and start talking about who is and isn't Catholic. 

Hello new Catholic brother ;)

learning about self-regulating her own temperature

texture under the feet, a calming view, so much to take in

found a jellyfish

     

Putting her snowsuit to good use

 Wildly fluctuating temperatures made for some very interesting February outdoor adventures.

Backyard picnic. No food.

Fine motor skills with the clothespins, a helping attitude, and learning that the sun's heat dries our clothes.

Bubbles, always a source of wonder.

Took this photo to show Natalka her uvula after reading about it in a book.

Story time at the library.

Exploring the library computer.

Some new moves on the parallel bars.

The joy of pushing past one's fear! Natalka on a ladder.

 

Found a worm on a walk.

Spanish story time con Papi.

Expressing herself at the dollar store.

Teaching brother to grasp things.

Who is copying whom?  Natalks keen on what gets mom's attention.

Claiming her little brother.

Fine motor skills and a precursor to braiding - twisting yarn.

Not to mention the numerous library books (and books we own) that we read daily.  Our library focus has been zoology, and we've been moving through mammals, birds, reptiles, and currently on amphibians.  Natalia is picking up not only vocabulary to describe what we're learning about the animal kingdom, but also incorporating these newly learned concepts into her play and conversations.  Just this morning, she brough a balloon and talked about having laid an egg.  We talked about what kind of animal she might be (it has to be an animal that actually lays eggs!), and she proceeded to inform me (when I asked what was inside, expecting to hear the name of an animal) that there was yolk inside, so that the baby animal had something to eat to help it grow so it could hatch!  She then opened the curtains to let the sun in because the egg needs heat for the animal to hatch!  

We read and watched videos about air travel as well.  That it'd be noisy.  That her ears might hurt.  What she can expect to see out the window.  How to answer if someone asks her with whom she's traveling or what her full name is. That kind of thing.

Waiting for her plane.

Sitting in her own big chair on the plane.  Playing with the "just-in-case" travel pouch we prepared for her should she get separated from Daddy.

I also wanted to add the various social situations that Natalka has had, but I didn't want to go through the photos documenting these encounters due to privacy issues.  She played with six kids at Antonio's baptism, a little girl cousin she just met at her great-grandfather's funeral, whatever kids we run into at the library, at the playground, or at church, and the regular playdates that she has with several friends.  And that's just her peers.  More importantly, she's interacted with her grandparents, an aunt, cousins, and friends of her parents.  What's more, she finally agreed to go to a children's "class/childcare" during a church event, and not only did she go willingly, she was eager to return. 

Something else that isn't evident from these photos is her continued multilingual growth.  I mentioned her growing English vocabulary from library books, but the show Little Einsteins also helps in this regard.  We finally found it in Spanish, so she's started watching it in Spanish as well.  You can see one of the photos depicting Spanish storytime as well.  Signing likewise is used regularly, and I try to keep up by watching the Signing Time videos with her at least once.

What I've learned from these two months is that there are seasons for everything, and that there is no need to try to squeeze every "subject" into every month.  While we are taking an unschooling approach for the time being, and I am enjoying seeing how much there is to be learned without curricula or lesson plans, I'd be remiss to say that I will stick with unschooling for the long haul.  One reason for unschooling right now is that I agree with what I'm reading about "delayed academics", or more accurately, about not imposing premature academics on a child.  Charlotte Mason, I haven't forgotten about you ;)