I have been working alot lately with how I approach my children after coming to several conclusions about parenting. Those conclusions, to soon potentially be written in book format, are basically that being a bully, jerk or pain in the butt doesn't get you anywhere. Sooooo, I decided to work on relationship and do MORE with my kids, not just quality, but quantity. That is why I had the post about taking the kids to the Zoo, which I did on my own ( I only took the older 3 out of the 4), mowing the lawn and volunteer work.
Here is Mary at Church helping pass out the Angel Food Ministries food. This is a food cooperative, it isn't something you qualify for but you basically buy into and pay a little more than 1/3 of what it would cost at the grocery store. It comes once a month and its a preset menu. We were the 5th highest selling Church of 8 in our first month with 70 baskets sold. You only have two hours to come pick up the food and Mary Beth's responsibility was to pass out the bags of green beans as people went past.
If you look carefully you can see her about dead center in this picture, she is sitting down but she never skipped a beat, got all her work done and never complained.
God love and bless her.
Under the Mercy,
Mathew S
Monday, September 17, 2007
How many pounds of green beans is that?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Why do I homeschool
This is a question that gets brought up around my house from time to time and I feel that I really need to work it out. We have a good parochial school system here in this diocese. Cost isn't much of a factor thanks to a very generous stewardship program that allows those that give of their time, talent and treasure as a family the ability to have their children attend the school. We are also in a for the most part in a faithful diocese that presents the faith well.
However, a long time friend of mine that has studied education thinks that we, as a society, are failing our children. It is not enough to just teach the elements of the faith but the children have to learn a relationship with Jesus. By the time children come into the hallways of a formal school the opening in the relationship doorway is often being pushed closed rapidly by society.
One of the things that we, as a family, have done is to minimize the amount of media that our children are exposed too. The biggest thing we have done is to eliminate (for all practical purposes) television from our daily lives. This is a 'negative' thing we have done by eliminating something that has so much harmful content from my children's being.
The harder things to do are the positive steps that have to be taken to form the relationship between Jesus and my kids. This is the place I am called to grow, having to live my faith in front of and with my children. How I treat my children and relate to them forms their idea of God and how they relate to God. My personal growth is formed in my call to holiness inside my vocation is found here, relating to and with my children.
Here is the place that I really begin to feel my call to homeschool. I am able to form my children and have to work to relate to them better and better. I don't have as much luxury in being able to send them away and avoid dealing with problems when they are small or large. I am forced to deal with them, it can be hard but it is something that I have to do.
As a father I feel that I have to protect my daughters, I am their knight and they need to see me protecting them. It is a role that I didn't understand when I became a father but it is clear that I am the primarily responsible for the education of my children. In and how they are educated is one of the biggest places I can protect my daughters but also treat them with knightly chivalry.
So, why do I want my children taught at home? Simply it has to do with my taking responsibility for being directly responsible for their education in knowledge, wisdom, dealing with society, dealing with relationships and meeting them at the place they are at the moment. I can impart the values that I want them to have without interference and work with them in a way that a teacher that has more students at different places can. In doing all this, I can protect their innocence; I can let them enjoy their childhood.
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
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Now that Raffi song is stuck in my head. . .
We are going to the zoo, zoo,
how about you, you
we're going to the zoo
I took the older three kids out for fun at the Sedgwick County Zoo before heading into work on Friday. For those that don't know about the zoo, it was founded in 1971 and is a very high end zoo. Very quality exhibits and is an exciting place to visit.
So, first we had to visit the newest exhibt, the Humboldt penguins:
Next, it was time to fly off. . .
. . . to the jungle.
Of, course we had to see what the Mexican wolf was up too. . .
And we will not forget the silly and adorable gorillas
These are the ones for kids to play with, unfortunately the real ones were being shy and all we could see was their backs.
Oh, wait, that is Lucia in the exhibit and not one of the silverbacks. . .
. . . and we made it to see Aslan, who was on a stone table.
We saw a sign that reminded me of my fellow bloggers from around the world:
. . . and I remembered that I am not necessarily on top of the world.
Cross-posted at: Holy Family Home Educators and Catholic-Dads.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Hell in a handbasket. . .
. . . now it's Hell in a internet connected e-mail device.
Web service gives alibis for adulterers
It used to be you didn't fornicate and then we came up with "safe" ways of doing it. Now we are looking for safe ways to cheat. Cheat? Isn't that something that is wrong? Lord Have Mercy!
I guess what really scares me is that my daughter's have to grow up in a world that offers this type of service. Where it is customary to create alibis to have a fling with someone.
The article talks about how this service can help save a marriage, well, I guess it keeps the other spouse from getting mad but the bond is falling apart.
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
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adultery, alibi's, Just plain wrong, catholic, catholic blogs
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The world stopped turning. . .
If you have little ears around you may want to wait on playing the video or turn down the volume at the beginning because it is unedited and has one vulgar word repeated a few times.
Cross-Posted at Catholic-Dads.
It is hardo imagine that it has been six years since I was sitting in the parking lot before work talking on 147.435 simplex to K9HFX and KCØHFL. Scott, K9HFX, mentioned that the news channell was running a story about a plane crashing into the world trade center. The event was being reported as a small plane. Everyone had conjecture about wht kind of mistake had been made by the pilot. Then the report came in that a second plane had struck the other tower. Immediately we knew something was very wrong, this was not a mistake someone had made.
Lviving the past six years I know have four children, athe time my I only had 1 child and she was two years old. She doesn't remember that day directly. They wanted to know what my wife and I were talking about last night when I mentioned what today was. It was hard to explain it to them, I didn't play the above video for them but some raw footage as it was just so hard to explain exactly what happened. My eight and five year olds took on the mind of their father and begin to ask a million questions as to why this and that wasn't done to save people's lives and how the police could have jumped out of one plane into the bad men's plane and stopped them.
God bless them that they think it is something that is simple like that. I wish it was always that simple. Working in emergency services I have come to know many brave men and women who on a daily basis offer to risk their lives in the service of others. They give so much of themselves for total strangers, they remember the fallen brothers and sisters from New York on that day, the day the world stopped turning. Today we remember them in a special way.
We remember that day because it is a day that I never would have thought of seeing, much like the day the Berlin Wall fell, it was something my father never thought would happen. I remember seeing the Queen of England in Westminster Abbey not only mourning for America's loss but singing an American patriotic hymn. Remember the sacrifice and loss of that day when the world stopped turning. Thank God you have first responders around you.
Tragedies happen everyday, few are on this scale, pray for those that respond to crisises, no matter how small, that is the overlooked lesson from New York. When someone is abused they are hurt just as deeply but it is overlooked by the world. However, just like Sept 11th, it is a moment where that person needs help. I am not, in any way, trying to minimize the horror of September 11th, what I want people to understand is that a small tragedy (relatively speaking) can be just as scary for one person trapped in a house and it can be just as dangerous for someone responding to the call for help.
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Sed Contra,
As St. Thomas Aquinas would say, "Sed Contra" in response to three common popular opinions to demonstrate what was true. So, I have been challenged times three by atheists on my earlier blog about the self-defeating nature of Atheism.
I agree with the Curt Jester, we need a series of Dominican priest murder-mysteries.
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
Bible Bible+christian+society atheism proof+for+God God antiatheism anti-atheism against+atheism
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Hard to be mad. . .
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
Friday, September 7, 2007
NFP vs. Contraception:Not a grudge match
These guys are getting very creative and demonstrating some good points.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
A Catholic Mom climbing the Pillars: Catholic Carnival #135
It has returned again for another week, please check out the Catholic Carnival, and special thanks to Ebeth for hosting.
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
A Catholic Mom climbing the Pillars: Catholic Carnival #135
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
I can almost hear Alvin and his brother's singing. . .
My dad said something to my brother the other day, "It's the last four months of the year, you remember what you aren't supposed to do?"
"Yes, Dad!"
"Just making sure you remembered that it was a bad time of year to buy anything for yourself."
As I get older I can see the wisdom of my college rector's idea that Advent was Advent and a time to prepare for Christmas and not a time to celebrate Christmas. The best way I have to explain it would be pointing out that we don't celebrate Thanksgiving all of November but we wait and have our celebration on one day. It is getting harder and harder to set our focus as a society on what is important, the world is more complicated every year and more commercial. This song reminds me of when I was a child, it was so much easier for things to be simple.
That is one of the advantages of homeschooling, not having a TV and my kids don't get caught up in the cultural/societal hype that can be so inncocently amplified by well-meaning people. I want them to have calm and quiet memories of Christmas, something that we celebrate when it comes and we prepare for before hand.
Under the Mercy,
Matthew S
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