I have a piece over at Aleteia Today!

When we sent our third off to college, I felt so disconnected. It felt hard to say good bye over the phone. However, I wrote up all those feelings and it became this piece about tips for sending your child off to college.

It is a week of new beginnings and good byes.  Today, all my children are in school.  That is the first time ever since I've had children, that there aren't children at home.  

 

She lost her first tooth last night, and started Kindergarten today.  

So what am I doing with my first day off ever?  Well, I'd love to send you photos of me eating bon bons, floating at a pool, dining out and drinking wine, painting, reading, laying in a hammock with a popsicle and a Jimmy Buffett song cranked up in the background but no.  I am doing none of those things.  Today, I'm going to the Dentist to get a crown fitted.  

Yes. Envy me.  I live the dream.  

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. It's been a while since I did this exercise and I don't have a piece ready to go because this week has been so crazy so I  figured it was time.  Plus, I happened to catch Jennifer Fulwiler on EWTN's new Register Radio show.  Now that school started, I'm trying to return to writing more seriously.  Here's hoping!

2.  Rosary Catch up.  I'm trying to do one a day.  Some days, it's all I can do to get through the Apostle's Creed.  Prayer some days is easy, other days hard.  It's like parenting.  Often, we get more out of it when it's hard, but like parenting when it's hard, we think we hate it while we're in the midst of the tough stuff.  Just when I think about stopping, someone asks me to pray for someone or something.  So today, I'm through a decade...yes I'll do another when I finish posting this...I promise.

3.  I fell off the Wii Fit wagon and I haven't gotten up.  I know, I just need to step back on, but if I go downstairs, I'm going to have to clean.  So I've been in full avoidance mode.  I don't want to be lectured by a machine.

4.  My oldest started college.  We are now on day three.  I suddenly understand why 18 years ago, my parents drew breath sharply when three days in I said, "I met a guy," dated him for the next six years and then married him.  Ten children later....it's surreal to see one's first start adulthood.  I tell myself I'm ready for him to be ready to start life away from us...but the heart tugs hard. 

5.  Paul is almost three.  In two weeks, we will celebrate his birthday.  I can't tell you how much joy he brings because every day, there is more. I am learning more from him about life than I did in graduate school when I studied Trisomy 21 while earning a master's in Special Education. Paul teaches me hands on, how boundless love can be. It reaches out beyond speech. It reaches out beyond age --he charms every one of his brothers and sisters, even the surly teen girl who pretends that she doesn't belong to this motley noisy messy lot.  It's hard to remember how frightened I was for him, it's hard to remember how sad I felt that he would have Down Syndrome, because very little about his life evokes those feelings now. 

6.  I'm reading a book on Anxiety.  It's a bit funny because most of the time, I'm not anxious, but it's teaching me how someone who is anxious responds to things as versus me.  My main problem with any books like "The Hyper-Active Child" and "Your Over Sensitive Kid" and the like is that I can fit almost all of my square peg kids into the round holes that are presented; I can find examples of everything from their lives making them a mish mash of every psychological condition ever devised.  If there's a lable for kids who spend afternoons running around the main floor in a giant circle pushing a doll carriage while having a conga line and screaming, they have that too.  It makes applying the techniques for dealing with any condition theoretically universally applicable; it also means those same techniques are in my family's case, universally ignored. 

7.  Podcasts: I'm considering adding them to this blog.  Like blogging, I know nothing about podcasts at the moment when I'm considering this addition other than it's verbal, it's me talking, and it might be fun.  The questions would be: Why? and Would Anyone Listen? My why is, there's something more intimate about talking than writing; it also would be a bit different. In addition, spelling wouldn't matter.  I could finish sentences with dangling prepositions.  Humor that could not be fleshed into a full fledged column could still be conveyed.  Why not is: Could I actually pull it off in this house without interruptions that would mar the listening experience?(piano playing, fights over the last piece of pie, tv, computer and radio background noise, babies and toddlers requiring attention etc). 

Final Note: Faith &Family September Issue is coming out and my piece on homework will be in it.
You can hear a bit about it here: Back to School Podcast. It's my first magazine piece and yes I'm psyched psyched psyched!

Brag a little

It's Thursday.  So let's evaluate the week in review:  

1) Got 2 of the 3 to soccer games (wrote down the wrong time for the third), and the kids served mass on Sunday so the weekend was chopped full of stuff including two projects on the rosary, a mandatory volunteer service for five hours for one, a creative project on Greek Mythology and a major paper plus the oldest was trying to get things done prior to going down to Texas for a look at some colleges so by the end of Saturday and Sunday, I was ready for another weekend, but we got all that demanded to be done, done.  

2) Wrote more, been so busy with managing the schedules that writing time has been hard to carve out, and having a son who needs my computer for his assignments, hasn't helped with lappie's availability.  So getting a piece written and submitted was a big deal, now comes the hard part of waiting.  

3) Celebrated our five year old's birthday this week.  Dad made a four tier cake and it was a big (literally) hit.  

4) Put in hour five and six on the basement.  (There are two huge rooms involved that are replete with legos, books, plastic animals, barbies in various stages of undress, dvd's, cd's, blocks, thomas the tank engine parts and pieces, baby toys, Wii games, and costumes) and that doesn't count any of the furniture.  It's still chaos, but I can see the floor....in places.

5) Husband and I went on a formal date, (See Palate Cleanser) and this past weekend, on Saturday, I bought a dress for the occasion and felt vaguely adult and elegant for an evening.   Almost wish there was another occasion soon so I would be able to wear it again before wearing it would stretch it out. 

6) Have two physicals for two kids today and they're kids who are due as opposed to "Oh yeah, I have to do that...."

7) Called a friend I hadn't spoken to in several months.  Whenever we speak, it's like a wash of the Holy Spirit on my heart.   It's almost too rich to do too often, but I love her and it always makes me happy when we can connect.  

Brag a bit on your blog or in the comment section of Family and Faith Live!

Too Much Knowledge

With my daughter entering high school, I began considering how our lives will change in the comming years when they start to move on and enter college. As a result, I began making an actuary table so I'd know when graduations from 8th grade, high school and college were happening. 

The results indicated the need to establish a few rules. 

1) Owing to the birthday overload that smothers March through May, resumes in July and extends through the rest of the year, please, no life changing memorable events in January, February or June. 

2) Graduations from 8th grade, high school and college, confirmations, first communions will preclude any other celebrations in all years except 2017 and 2028. 

3) Those two years, I'm declaring off limits so your father and I can catch our breath. 

Public Service Announcement: over the next 20 years, if you like to party, get on the guest list now.  If' your're a family friend and you'ld be on the guest list already, fair warning, pace yourself.

Things will slow down around 2030, when Paul is 22, just in time for our 40th wedding anniversary.  I will be 64 and finally able to start saving for my retirement.

In 2031, all children will be out of the house and educated through College.  They may then feel free to marry.

The Sounding Fury of an English Tutor

Every time I’ve ever considered myself competent in English, someone has come along to set the record straight.

Back in high school, I took regular English instead of Honors freshman year. The kid next to me was blonde and blue eyed, just like the teacher. She asked him to look up, she called him “Son.” Being a literal child, I took this to mean there was a genetic or at least custodial relationship between the two of them. A few minutes later, I saw him write in large letters on a page of loose leaf, “I HATE YOU MOTHER….” I’ll let you fill in the blank, this is a family blog.

I said in shock, “That’s not a very nice thing to say about your mother.”
The boy, now convinced that perhaps I should have been held back further still, shook his head incredulously. “She’s not my mom.” We did not speak again the entire four years.

At college, I took my major seriously. I had learned poetry, read Shakespeare, I knew my 19th century fiction and could trace the development of the sonnet over the entire Renaissance period, I could even write sonnets, not that there was much demand for that sort of thing.

There was one author that thwarted me, Faulkner. I read the book. I reread the book. I read the cliffs. I reread the cliffs. I flunked the quiz. Zero. I had understood nothing. The teacher thought I had blown off the assignment and was just being funny, so he read my quiz aloud in class as a compliment. I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise. After that, I avoided all literature born in the New World.

Then I entered the work force as a teacher.

My teaching assistant was at a community college and struggling with her English required course. I offered to help as a means of sealing a bond between me and her. She had to look at two poems, compare and pick the “best one.” Struggling with the criteria to pick a “best poem,” I gamely took a gander at the two choices and discussed it with my TA. We went through the pros and cons of both. I did have an opinion. I explained it. She went with it. The poem I didn't pick... the teacher described in her notes as "Faulkneresque."

The teacher said she had picked the wrong poem.

One would think I would have learned not to mess around with English classes to which I do not belong, but no, I am stubborn and remember, I wasn’t in the Honors class.

Enter my poor son. He is in Honors English. Faulkner. He read the book. He had me read the book. We discussed the book. We researched together and discussed his paper. He wrote. I make him rewrite. He wrote again. I make him rewrite again. Five days of pure English Major boot camp Faulkner Sound and Fury hell produced a beautiful paper ready for submission right under the wire.

I won’t tell you his grade but I’m now restricting my tutoring to math.

Self Reflection Corrections upon Being Reviewed

The humor blog people have spoken. I have been reviewed.

My stories are too long.

“Too many notes.” Said the Emperor.
“Just cut a few and it will be perfect.” –lines from Amadeus the Movie in case any of Hillary’s people are reading this and want to accuse me of plagiarism.

So I’m off to read Emily Dickenson and Ernest Hemingway.

She wrote short poems.
The guy wrote short sentences.

They liked periods.
They were famous.

You have to read these folks in High School.
They were and are respected authors of note.

The trouble is, neither of them ever was very funny.

Emily Dickenson made Adrian Monk look like a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader for Extroverts. I remember one episode of “Saved by the Bell” where some female –(does it really matter which?) explained that every Dickenson poem could be set to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” It kind of ruined my chances of taking Emily Dickenson seriously, though that may have been a side effect of having watched an episode of “Saved by the Bell.”

“Because I would not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me…”
I could just hear the banjo in the background.

Reading poetry like Ginsburg’s “Howl” and Robert Lowell’s stream of consciousness stuff, I always felt reminded of my own shallowness. Being reminded that one is an inch deep is not fun. So I complained, “How come there aren’t any happy poets?” I mean, Sylvia Plath committed suicide and so did her husband. The plurality of poets we studied were sensitive cool people that drank wine and coffee and water from the tap. They thought serious thoughts and never laughed, though they might snicker at something mundane or pedestrian.

Like banjo players and bright colors and Texans.

So when I got to college, I was an English major without the “cool factor.” Like being a member of the literature “Pep squad,” instead of the cheerleaders…or band….or drill team. At least I was a major in the subject, so it wasn’t like I was in the flag corps, or a twirler.

I had to read "To Have and Have Not." It made as much sense as the movie.

I remember reading “Bartlby the Scrivener” in junior year.

Maybe it was immaturity on my part, but I never saw Bartlby’s “I would prefer not to.” As a cry for help or an indication of the deep depressed feelings he harbored. In humor, you can say, “I didn’t get the joke.” and everyone understands that humor is subjective and thus open to interpretation. In serious literature, there isn’t any equivalent, “I didn’t get the gravity.” It’s just presumed that any failure in comprehension rest with the limitations of the reader and not the writer.

In this case, that was probably true, but even 22 years later, I feel no compelling need to revisit the work to figure out what I missed.

I also remember that every junior that tried using that line "I would prefer no to." to get out of writing a theme on the story was told “No.”

The highlight of that English class section was watching Greg Brady star in the film version as Gingersnap. It was his one attempt at “serious acting” and that was comedic in its own weird way. One could wonder…what would come next…Greg Brady as Johnny Bravo as…anyone in a Faulkner novel. Such a feat would render Faulkner even more incomprehensible than it already is, at least for me.

Maybe I’d get the great ones better if I took up banjo and worked Hemingway's story to the tune of Gilligan’s Island…mememememememe…ahem.

“You can Call Me Ishmael….

For I hunt a big white whale…

He took my leg

Now it’s a peg!

And here’s my tragic tale…”

Alas, I remain a happy poet. My angst is insufficient to my muse, oh, the woe...

Editor Husband: "Hey Sherry, Melville wrote Moby Dick and Bartlby the Scrivner, not Hemingway."

"Holy Cats! You're right. I'm so embarrassed....
Okay, maybe more of my problem with literature rest in my own wee brain than I thought."

for serioiusly good humor, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/ or http://www.claypigeonmag.com/! Short. Pithy. Clever. Fun. Probably more Accurate.

College Post Modernist Thinking Students declare Disagreement only the result of Ignorance on the part of Others

It happened at the University the other day, when a group of very hip modernists who understood that no truth is knowable but were smart enough to declare anyone who pointed out that such a statement could be perceived as a statement of a universal truth were just being clever, decided that debate itself indicates ignorance, misunderstanding and stupidity on the part of anyone who advocates any “traditional” position about knowledge. (Truth being identifiable, knowable, and even transferable via such an unwieldy tool as language).

When asked if they weren’t simply adopting a Berkley stance, being is perception, they scoffed at such a simplistic understanding of the universe. “No, what we understand is that all information is biased and therefore innately untrustworthy as accurate or even valid. No actual reality can be verified as actual, as 100 people seeing the same accident will each see the accident differently and no one person saw the whole accident.”

Additionally, another young slim woman sipping Starbucks offered, “The consensus of a large group of people in one proximity or even across a nation or over time, is not a validation of a reality, only the result of collective norms, societal pressures and the clumsiness of our own English Language to provide sufficient levels of nuance to everyday observations.”

“But,” offered one hapless professor, attempting to provide a touch of guidance based on his own study, something the students considered inadequate to substantiate his authority on things over theirs, regardless of the extent of his research, “If I hold up an apple, you know it is an apple, and 100 or 1000 people looking at it would know that it is an apple.”

“Hah!” up jumped one of the more gothic looking youths with multiple piercings, his appearance and quick action made the professor startle, something which gave the clever young bohemians present a great bit of glee, “But an alien arriving here would not know it is an apple unless you told them, and a Frenchman would not call it an apple, but a pomme, and someone who never before seen an apple would not know what that object in your hand was. Further, a blind man would not know appleness from your hand holding it, and a color blind man would not know the red quality of that apple, and therefore see an apple as meaning something different than you. You cannot claim the apple would be known to all, because it would not be perceived by all or comprehended by all. We believe all perception is all we can know and that all perception is deceptive in nature.”

“But then you believe nothing is knowable.”
“Yes.”

“How do you know nothing is knowable?”
“We can’t know, that would be proving it and that would go against our central thesis.”

“So you can’t even know if anything is knowable? Why learn anything then?”


“Exactly!” the slim girl smiled. The other students nodded their heads in demur affirmation of the professor's sudden enlightenment.

And the professor smiled as his goth student teacher praised how he had finally come to comprehend the ignorance of his own ignorance, the prejudice that prevented him from understanding how to deconstruct everything into meaninglessness. “Now you’re getting it man. Have a Starbucks.” and handed him a Venti Mocha Latte.



For thinking that is even more post modern than the most post modern deconstructionist theories of deconstruction, and humor that allows us to cope with such nonsense, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/!