The Mom Weekly Volume 18: November 28
Notes:
I don’t plan for “From the Vault” to be an every week occurrence, but this week it’s vital to have a birthday post for “Ideagirl”—the old blog moniker of our oldest.
Remember how much I love you,
Mom
From the Vault: Happy Happy Birthday Ideagirl! (November 2006)
Today you are nine. You wanted a neon-frosted birthday cake and you got one! It was bright and beautiful and bold, just like you, our first-born child.
I am so enormously grateful to be a mother, and I am so grateful that you were my introduction to motherhood. You are so full of life and love, and so energetic. In so many ways I was unprepared for motherhood, even at my advanced age (34 when you were born). But your father and I have learned together about the “awesome responsibility” as Pope John Paul II in a poem refers to parenthood. You have been a good teacher!
Two years ago, when we went to our family “Beach Week,” my oldest sister, your aunt, took you on her lap when we arrived. She looked at me and said, “I’d like to introduce you to my little sister Nancy.” (that would be me!). She, and others, have talked about how much we look alike. I think we are alike in so many ways, both good and bad, so I try to be better every day and be a good example for you.
Now that you have glasses we look even more alike. You love reading just as much as I do, and I love being able to introduce you to so many great books and authors and enjoy them with you, like Laura Ingalls Wilder or C.S. Lewis, Carol Ryrie Brink or Eleanor Estes.
One of your favorite birthday presents is a 5-basket Montessori sequential sewing kit, something you have asked for repeatedly. You progress to each new basket when you master the skills in the first one. You have always liked sewing but this is helping you become very careful with it and accomplished in sewing skills. As you were completing the running stitch exercise, and the stitches were so careful and so even, you said again and again with a huge smile, “I’m so proud of myself!” And we are proud of you, dear one.
Interesting/noteworthy
Four Ways to be Grateful—And Happier— Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic
How Travis Kelce Manifested the Best Year of His Life—WSJ Exclusive (gift link)
You’ve probably already seen this, but can there ever be enough fun news about today’s royal couple?
A Different Kind of Family Tradition? A Big Holiday Trip Together
We were ahead of our time in going to Italy & England for Thanksgiving several weeks ago. Also, I researched and prepped an interview for travel writer Seb Modak, the author of this article.
An Action Item: Consider starting the St. Andrew Christmas Novena on November 30
That’s tomorrow! The St. Andrew Novena is an interesting novena. It starts on the feast of St. Andrew, which is November 30, and ends on December 24. You are meant to pray the pray 15x a day. You can read about it here on the Hallow website (and interesting side note: during Advent they will have Liam Neeson as the voice for C.S. Lewis reflections).
Now, 15 times a day may seem like a lot, but it’s really not. I have an album in 15 photos of different artist versions of the prayer. Some are repeated. What I do is “favorite” a prayer once I’ve said it, and come back to the album when I have a chance. Once all of the photos are favorited, I’m finished for the day. The next day, I remove them from favorites, and so on, through the novena. It’s worked really well for me. This year I decided to create my own. I quickly created five different ones in a graphic design program, and they are now part of the album.
Here’s one:
What are you doing this weekend?
The Mom Weekly schedules to post on Tuesdays. One of the reasons for this is to encourage you (and me, too!) to think about weekend plans. All too often, I have let that go until Friday, and then it’s hard to get people together, or make plans for coffee, or figure out when you go to Mass (other than the default, which is what we typically do).
So, now that it’s Tuesday, what are you planning for the weekend? I’m going to suggest trying to cover four “F”s to get ideas flowing:
*faith—when are you going to Mass?
*friends—what friends will you see or connect with?
*food—any fun recipes you plan to try, or restaurants you plan to visit?
*fun—anything interesting you are going to play, watch, or do this weekend? Now’s the time to think it through, and put it on the calendar (even informally).