Small Success Thursday

It's Thursday!  It's time to review the week and shout out a little.  So this is this week's small success report:

1) I got six kids hair cuts and four kids school shoes. 

2)  I survived getting six kids hair cuts and four kids school shoes.

3) I read a book (all but the last 50 pages but I'm almost done and it's because I've taken time to read each day). 

4) The writing block seems to have lifted.  (Yeah. Happy dance. It's a little thing but it's my little thing). 

5) We went to the pool twice this week. 

6) We will be going on vacation; the kids to Camp Grandmother and us for three days to celebrate our 20th anniversary. 

7) I was asked to be a guest blogger at a site I enjoy.

Have a success?  Share it over at Family and Faith Live!

Summer Meme

I was never good at tag as a kid.  I never caught anyone.   So if I got tagged, the game was essentially over.   However, in blog tags, I'd never yet been tagged so today, I'm happy to say, "I'm it!" 

The Ironic Catholic tagged me at her post today. 

My five favorite devotions are: 

1) Saint Bridgette's devotion --fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Mary's, every day for a year.  It is for all the souls in purgatory but it is also my daily reminder to pray and because it is daily, I do find myself doing it during laundry or dishes or taking out the garbage.  It means that any activity I do can become mindful and for that, I am very grateful.

2) Saint Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary:  This has been an ongoing pleasure and challenge for the past (it's hard to believe it has been this long), seven years.   When we have the days where we're doing the litany and the rosary and still have to keep up with Saint Bridgette's, you sometimes feel like you are marathon praying and in truth, you are. 

3) The Divine Mercy devotion:  This was something I said while sitting at the hospital with Paul; it gave me great comfort.  I use it when I'm stressed out; when the Holy Spirit wants me to focus on mercy because I am becoming to harsh or too hard or too sad. 

4) The Rosary:  The rosary always surprises me with how much I love it.  Mary's devotion is my go to when I can't figure out anything to do prayer.  She provides me with my everyone needs to be quiet because everyone is fighting and I want to hit the reset button prayer. Mary also stands ready when I this more often prayer.

can't sleep, I can't cope, or even worse, I don't want to cope prayer.   She is always my why don't I pray
5)  Adoration:  I have loved it whenever I have gone; I have felt pierced and fed whenever I have gone.  Like the rosary, I know it is always there and always possible.  (There's a perpetual adoration chapel just a mile and a half from me).  Yet like the rosary, I do not avail myself of its riches as often as I could or should.  You have to know there are no coincidences with God and the fact that I was thinking only yesterday of how I should go and today, I get a reminder via a blog meme, that this is something I will have to simply schedule and go do. 

Now I get to tag five other bloggers to consider how the devotions they cherish feed them and invite them to share. 
My Wonderful Life
Cheeky Pink Girl
Adrienne's Corner
Violin Mama
Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering

And I realize what a relief it was to never catch anyone because I now sit here thinking of all the other bloggers I could have tagged but didn't.   Ah well.  In the meantime, tag! You're it!

Tattle Free Zone

Last week at breakfast, my daughter began tattling to me about her brother who also happened to be sitting across from me.  Naturally, her brother reciprocated.  "She's putting on too much butter."  "He poured chocolate syrup in his milk." "She took an extra piece of toast.  You're only supposed to have two."  "He's telling on me." "She kicked her foot under the table." "He made a mean look." No one actually waited for me to respond.  I thought I'd nipped it in the bud with a classic Mom glare over my cheerios but no, as soon as breakfast was over it started up again.  

"Mommmmmm, I wanted to play the Wii and he took the remote."
"Mommmmmm, she wants to play the Wii and we're supposed to do our math before we have screen time."  
"Mommmmmm, he's trying to pretend he's the parent."
"Mommmmmm, tell her I'm right."

Now I hate tattling.  It's tiresome.  But it's a fine line parents have to tread because kids are your first best early warning system (see last week's post on skateboarding) of seriously dangerous epic experiments that might be happening outside of your knowledge. 

So I appreciate having a mole network amongst the kids to keep tabs on what everyone is doing.  However, I got tired of being used as the nuclear threat in the perpetual sibling cold war.You know the drill.  Not so innocent random sibling comes to the room and says with breathless excitement and no small dash of drama, "Mommmmmmmm!"  There's an important element of syntax here.  The word Mom has been transformed into a two sylable phrase with two stresses, not to be confused with MoM! MOM! or MaOMMM, all of which indicate something far more expensive and/or dire. Once they have caught my eye, the tattle begins. 

It doesn't matter what the tattle actually is about, the tone is always the same.  "There's a disobedient child. Sic em!"  and I'm supposed to pounce like a rabid dog while they sit back smugly and enjoy the show while quoting lines from Ricardo Montalban in Startrek II about revenge.

If the child tattling is older, the approach is a slight bit more smooth.   I am suddenly the Judge. "Your honor, this miscreant was caught red handed by me engaging in behavior deemed improper by me. What say you? Be sure it's a nasty long sentencing."  Mind you, if I have any words for the prosecutor about his or her conduct in the proceedings, that is soundly ignored.  

So I banned tattling for the day unless it was on yourself.   For at least the first six hours, the kids struggled as good lawyers will, to discern a way to get around the ban.  One of them finally opted for the everyone loses approach.  "We were all downstairs watching TV even though you said we should do our reading first."  "No tattlesnakes.  Are you tattling?"  "Yes, but on myself too."  "So I should take away the TV from everyone for the rest of the day?" I asked.  "Well no but..." Suddenly, the apocalyptic approach to winning the sibling war took on a new seriousness.  I thought I'd made a breakthrough until her brother came up and said, "Mommmm, she broke the rule about tattling by tattling on us."  

That evening I racked my brain.  I needed a solution that hit them where they lived.  I couldn't take another day of being Judge Mom.  Then it came to me;  if they want me as a court, we'll have court fees.   I posted a sign next to the coin jar in the kitchen.  Tattles: 25 cents each.  With luck, the fines will make the habit price out of range in a day or two.    In the meantime tattlesnakes, "Don't tread on me."