Winter Gold

Yesterday was simply a good day, a nice flowing day like a tapestry of bright colors picked out with gold.

Kieron made a sword. A few years ago the kids found a lot of discarded wooden pickets from a construction site near our area. These have been wonderful sword material. You just sand them and saw them to size and then the possibilities are endless. He used the glitter glue he got for Christmas to glue a cardboard, umm, I’m blocking on the terminology, but you know, the crossbar that protects your hands. He painted a design on the crossbar bit. He painted the handle (we use enamel model paints for this kind of thing). He used colored duct tape for the hand-grip.

Liam and Brendan and I had an extended discussion about use of magic in literature. You know, where you sit in front of the fire and just go on a conversational journey, bringing in all the books you’ve ever read. Just so pleasant. Brendan was energized by the conversation. He didn’t say a whole lot, but he asked several thoughtful questions — and then talked a lot later on about his story world and his background history and some things he was planning. Liam likes hearing Den talk because he doesn’t do it that often but what he says is really interesting.

Then Clare came in and started talking about someone who said homeschooling was “un-American” on a message board. Brendan and Liam categorized what fallacy it was — see, Brendan read about four Logic books in December, told me again and again he didn’t really understand what he was reading, but still managed to identify a fallacy when he heard one.

I was trying to clean the lens on the old GameCube in the evening with a Q tip. Aidan watched me and then went to tell his dad: “The GameCube is sticking out its tongue and saying “AH!” He is developmentally delayed, but some of his poetic figures of speech make us catch our breath. He makes us see everything in a different light.

I spent a long time in our kitchen yesterday, scrubbing out the deep fryer, and suddenly the oldest two boys Brendan and Liam, got into an elaborate sword battle. (inspired by Brendan bringing out the sword and shield he made last spring, which in turn probably came from the literature conversation and Kieron making a sword — I love the way things happen around here!). Sean and Kieron just sat and watched them. It was so dramatic. I held my tongue — my Mom voice wanted to tell them to be careful but I didn’t want to ruin it. Every once in a while one of them would accidentally scrape the others’ knuckles or something and then one of them would say breathlessly: “Sorry.”

I am so glad we had the house built with an open format. The kitchen is separated from the great room by a counter, and the dining room and living room are combined into a big open space. This gives us a large “heart of home” which is extended into the loft since the stairs are in the great room and go right up into the loft. Then there are separate closed off bedrooms and so on. The older kids retreat into their rooms for private time but a lot of time is spent out in the center. This is what we hoped for when we planned the house and it has worked out well.
Liam will be going back to college on Sunday, so those days will be past soon until next break. Anyway, winter with a roaring fire in the wood stove seem to be prime time for sword fights and literature discussions.

Clare has been asked to appear in the diocesan newspaper. Father Geo had a photographer come and take pictures of her cantoring and then he sent her some interview questions. She has a rough draft and will work on it a bit more before sending it back. Her grandparents will no doubt be so proud. She is rather conflicted. She would rather have the attention away from her, and just do the work for God. But because she is so young to be the cantor and has rather an unusual voice — clear and light and Celtic — she is getting quite a lot of comments and praise. And of course, there is an element of enjoyment of the positive feedback — better than the other kind, of course! So there is the conflict.

We were a bit worried about Aidan yesterday (at least I was, and it rebounded onto poor Kevin). For me the worry was a combination of hormonal cycles (mine), Aidan being a bit under the weather, and the time of year. If you go to my other blog here there is a post about this time of year. Aidan tends to have his rather cataclysmic (but fortunately rare) seizures in December and January. So I have been holding my breath a bit, and trying to be vigilant without anxiety. Kevin tended Aidan carefully yesterday — watched him like a Daddy wolf, and brought him outside to play football with the cooler (Aidan’s favorite activity!) and that precipitated a long nap. After the nap Aidan was much more like his usual self.

Anyway, none of this is huge. It just felt like one of those golden days when all the work and care and time and energy just gives you back a small precious dividend. Kevin’s work situation is going well too. Some of the games he has spent a lot of time designing and programming are now bringing in some returns. In his work, as in our parental vocation, he spends the days crafting and polishing and pouring in time and thought and inspiration. There are rewards and delights along the way of course, but some of it comes later and we can’t always tell ahead of time what parts of the labor will be fruitful in which way.

Of course, I am not mentioning the inevitable aggravations and worse moments — like the extra time I spent dawdling on the computer instead of “being there”, the fact that our hot water heater is out and we haven’t been able to take showers for several days, Paddy’s meltdown where he leaped at Kieron and started pounding him — too much video games and chocolate, I think! — and the list goes on. A tapestry would be rather boring if all the colors were gold and silver, wouldn’t it??? But today I wanted to focus on the gold.
From their summer movie: The Burglar!