Saturday Seven ~ Week 37

1:: We decided to have one last summer and pre-baby hurrah at the Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire. It was our fourth year attending, and the boys had been begging to go. It really is a wonderful Ren Faire, and the weather was lovely. The boys were getting over colds, and we thought some time outside might be better than putting them in Sunday school class with other kids.

2:: I worked really hard Sunday evening to help our new Monday morning routine go more smoothly. Monday morning came, and we successfully made it to our first Classical Conversations classes. All things considered, it went very well, though I was exhausted by the time we got home and felt progressively worse (sore throat, headache...) as the day went on. Luke also started coughing more than he had previously.

3:: All our first week of school plans went out the window that night. Luke hardly slept for coughing, he was starting to have trouble breathing, and he ended up with a slight fever. It was a long night for both of us. The next day I took him to the doctor and got a prescription for an inhaler. The rest of the week was a blur. I was sick, Levi and Leif had lingering coughs (and Leif woke up occasionally at night), and Luke was up almost all night every night with non-stop coughing, breathing issues, and fever. Fun stuff.

4:: The sleep deprivation hit me really hard by yesterday (Friday) morning. The doctor called in two new prescriptions for Luke (and I hauled the kids to Costco to pick them up). My mom showed up in the afternoon and sent me to bed. She got some lunch for the boys, managed to get Luke to take a nap, reviewed CC memory work with Levi and Leif, read with the boys, and got dinner on the table. (Have I mentioned how wonderful my mother is?!) My new favorite friend, Olive, spent four hours cleaning my house. Things were looking up. Then, miracle of miracles, Luke slept over 8 hours straight. I had to get up in the middle of the night to make sure he was still breathing!

5:: This weekend will be full of projects, to-do lists, and trying to finish up the nursery. I'll post 'before' pictures shortly. I'm praying that everyone in this house will steadily feel much better, and we'll be bright and chipper by Monday morning!

And to engage our brains:

6:: Phys Ed: Can Exercise Make Kids Smarter? @ The New York Times:

But for now, the takeaway is clear. “More aerobic exercise” for young people[...] So get kids moving, he added, and preferably away from their Wiis. A still-unpublished study from his lab compared the cognitive impact in young people of 20 minutes of running on a treadmill with 20 minutes of playing sports-style video games at a similar intensity. Running improved test scores immediately afterward. Playing video games did not.

7:: The Case for Memorization by Stefani Austin (of Blue Yonder) @ Simple Homeschool:

To the boy who can recite “Paul Revere’s Ride,” a lowly broomstick is the noble steed that will, at midnight, help him to warn his countrymen of approaching danger.

A girl who has internalized Lewis Carroll’s “Jaberwocky” runs after the family dog with her paper towel tube saber crying, “Beware … my son, the jaws that bite the claws that catch.”

The great speeches of days of gone by, issued from atop the jungle gym, make history ring true to a young heart. When he can speak them, he has, in his own way, lived those pivotal moments in history through his own imagination. They are no longer simply trivia, but wisdom gained through experience.

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.

~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal


Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.

~From the television show The Wonder Years


And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?

~Rainer Maria Rilke