{phfr} What a break!

What has it been, two months since I last posted?  A few weeks after Fr. Andrew's ordination, we made a last-minute decision to attend our Parish Life Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.  Well, my decision was last-minute.  Fr. Andrew had been planning to attend already.  But the thought of my husband having several days off in a row for a long car trip with a giant hotel room to himself?  Bah!  We're coming too!  We lucked out with a fridge and microwave in the room and mostly ate out of those!  We had a nice time meeting new people and seeing some old, dear friends.  On our final evening (well, we were only there for two evenings and the first was the day we arrived, I think... whirlwind trip, it certainly was), we joined a seminary friend's family in hunting down St. George church in Cleveland, our hosts, and exploring a giant urban park across the street, complete with interesting bistros and good corner coffee shops.

{pretty}

On the day we departed Cleveland, we headed over to Fr. Andrew's sister's house to visit with her and her husband.  We brought them quite a variety of lunch food from our stash for our hotel room.  And in return, Aunt Leanna gave us this beautiful bowl from their recent trip to Turkey.  I just stuck it next to this icon of the resurrection (which in and of itself is fairly interesting, since it's not an icon seen very often in the East) and I love how the icon echos the shape and color of the bowl in the aura (is that the right word?  energies?) around Christ.  Not planned at all.

About a week later, we had a fun-filled visit from Fr. Andrew's other sister's family.  We had a total of ten people staying our house that week—and a total of six kids!  We had a great time having them here and we did a lot of exploring the city.

{happy}

 

One day found us in a park that was set up for some kind of outdoor theater.  The kids all ran around at random, and John was just so happy that he could now join in like the big ones.  His walking in earnest began somewhat simultaneously with Fr. Andrew's ordination, and he's happiest when all the adults in the room quit telling him how cute he is and trying to cuddle him already.  He just wants to move!

A couple of weeks later and we were off on another quick adventure.  My parents had gotten us tickets to an outdoor Shakespeare theater west of Madison, Wisconsin.  We picked up Daddy from work a bit early and raced up to meet Grandma and Grandpa at a Culver's (Mmmmmm....) near American Players Theater.  We had dinner and then left the kids with the grandparents who would take them to a nearby hotel to play in the pool.  We booked it to the theater for our walk "up the hill" to the stage.  If we'd have had more time, we could have picnicked in the park near the theater.  It's a beautiful location.

We slathered ourselves with bug repellent and grabbed the ponchos packed by my parents (hadn't thought of that...) and it was certainly a good thing we did the latter!  We got the full APT experience by getting thoroughly soaked as "the show must go on!"  The rain did let up for the touching final scene of The Taming of the Shrew and as we applauded the riveting performance, the cast applauded us for sitting through the weather!

{funny}

Here are our girls modeling their similar dresses in the hotel room the next morning.  They look a little too sweet, don't they?

And here's an out-of-order shot of John in our picnic basket.  Silly boy.

Finally, a week later and the National Antiochian Archdiocese Convention made its way to Chicago.  We left the kids with friends for "clergy day" so that Fr. Andrew and I could go to our respective meetings without boring the poor kids to death.  They had fun playing with their favorite two-year-old girl (whose blog hasn't been updated in a little while).  Mommy and Daddy had a fun day in downtown Chicago, sipping Starbucks and renewing friendships with fellow clergy families.

That Saturday, we joined my parents again, this time at the Convention hotel rather than Madison for some downtown shopping (can you guess how often I do that?) followed by Vespers.  The following morning, All Saints worshiped with many bishops and three metropolitans at the Convention.  It was a beautiful liturgy with many, many worshipers in attendance!

So, I think that about brings us up to the present.  No wonder I've felt somewhat off in my housekeeping and blogging and general normalcy.  There hasn't been any normalcy since the ordination!

{real}

A final monkey wrench in our life has been that a few members of our family have needed to be off of white flour and sugar.  So these cookies were made with whole grains, stevia, and "date sugar" (which is just ground up dates).  Yes, the chocolate chips had a wee bit of sugar, but I only put on three per cookie.  Not bad for a non-refined-sugar cookie, though!

And now, it's the beginning of August, we haven't been to the beach even once, and I need to make some decisions already about our homeschooling books.  Really, I just need to sit down and order them already.  I'm half excited and half terrified to beginning homeschooling again.  We sort of winged it last year (and considering my kindergartner taught herself to read, I think we did OK), but I'd like to be a little more organized for the big First Grade.  I'm sure I'll look back on this or on our future kids' first grade years and barely blink, but for now, I think it's a lot about establishing good habits—mainly for me!  Wish me luck!

****Update: Boy am I rusty.  Here's the missing button!****

Axios!

Congratulations, Dear!  You've been preparing for this since before I met you.  Thank you for letting me share this journey with you. 

Axios!  Mustahek!  He is worthy!

(As a side note, the girls now want to call him "Father Daddy.")

Ordination

 

Dear friends, we learned recently that my husband Dn. Andrew will be ordained to the priesthood of the Orthodox Church!  On May 29 at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, we will enter this new stage of ministry, the culmination of much preparation and prayer, with both trepidation and joy.  After a Lent full of revelations of my inadequacies, I ask for prayers for both of us as we become a Father and Khouria.

Should anyone wish to attend, please email me at perelandracbc [at] yahoo [dot] com (replace the words in brackets with the appropriate symbols) for details.

Eggs and Pure Prayer

On the Wednesday following the Sunday of the Pharisee and Publican, your breakfast might look something like this:

Have I ever told you how much I love my cast iron griddle?  It has a "grill line" side too.

And your spiritual reflections might be fed by something like this:

Three Characteristics of Christian Prayer
(a meditation on the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, by Fr. Patrick Reardon)

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

I have the troparion to St. Nicholas running through my head.  But not the one you might think.

It starts out all right.  And it's in the fourth tone.

O Holy Bishop Nicholas

You appeared to your flock as a rule of faith

But then it gets a little odd.

You give us lots of presents.

Hmm... I guess the final line, though unorthodox (pun intended?), may at least be factually correct:

You are the most famous Nicholas in the whole world.

Well.



As you might have guessed, we caught one of the kids (Maggie) singing this version (chanting it in the third tone would be more precise) a while back.  We died laughing.  I think we'll work on what he's really famous for when the girls wake up.

 

See the feast day boxes from Orthodox Christian Craft Supply nestled behind their shoes?  Those will help.  Oh, and don't worry: Mommy and Daddy will help John with the contents of his shoes.

In case you were wondering, the correct lines to our translation of the troparion are as follows:

O Holy Bishop Nicholas,
You appeared to your flock as a rule of faith.
An image of humility
And a teacher of abstinence.
Because of your lowliness, heaven was opened to you,
Because of your poverty, riches were granted to you.
Pray to Christ our God to save our souls.

Kursk Root Icon in Chicago

I was first made dimly aware of this icon by Mat. Anna's recent post in honor of its feast day on November 27.

I say dimly, because I didn't think about it much until a few connections were made in my brain through various people and I realized that this icon is in Chicago.

My husband was planning to attend a Synergy meeting tonight, which happened to be at the ROCOR Holy Virgin Protection Cathedral in Des Plains, which also happens to be the current stop for the Kursk Root icon.

 

The Synergy group was blessed to be able to view and venerate this holy icon.

Dn. Andrew and two priests spent some time trying to discern the names of the prophets depicted around the Theotokos.   King David and King Solomon are the top left and top right, respectively.  Isaiah, Moses, Habakkuk, Elias, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Gideon are the rest of them, but we don't remember who is who.

Can you believe that this icon is over 800 years old?  And yet this icon is not buried in a museum but is allowed to travel and the faithful are able to venerate it.  What a blessing!

(Thanks to Michele for the last two pictures!)

Mary Dolls and Coming Series

Blessed Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos in the Temple!  (That's a mouthful!)

I have a friend who lives in a very small Orthodox community in a small town.  If memory serves, they can only afford to have a priest out for Liturgy once a month.  The other Sundays, she takes her children to Sunday School at a nearby protestant church.  We were catching up over Facebook and through the course of our emails, she asked if I have any particularly spectacular resources for creating an Orthodox home with small children in mind.  I've been wanting to do a post on that, but I think instead it will turn it into a series.  This won't quite be the first post because I'd like to organize it a bit better and suggest several resources for similar aspects of an Orthodox home.  This is mainly me gushing about a new favorite resource.

We learned about Sunday's feast last week with the help of Orthodox Christian Craft Supply.  I knew it would be a hit in our household because for any story my children hear, they instantly want to have dolls to act it out.  And they really do get excited about and love Mary.  Veneration for the Mother of God is hardly something I have to teach: it comes naturally to my children.

It's interesting for me to discover their love for the Theotokos and how they identify with her.  I was raised in churches that gave me the idea that devotion to Mary was "a Catholic thing" and probably wrong.  It could be because they are girls that they identify with the Theotokos—that is certainly the case with a feast like the Entrance.  Or possibly, they identify with the child Christ in Mary's arms, and their love of Mary comes from their love for me.  They are very connected to their own mother, and the Mother of Christ naturally attracts their devotion.  (If that doesn't instill the fear of God into a mother, I don't know what will!)

Incidentally, one of the first icons my children have really identified with is the icon I've had as my blog title banner for a long while.  Have you noticed that it's an icon of Mary nursing Christ?  When my kids (who have all been extended nursers) see that Jesus is having milk(!), their faces just light up.  Jesus has milk just like me!  I can't think of a more intimate and meaningful way to begin to communicate the mystery of the incarnation to a small child.

Back to dolls.  Let me heartily recommend the Feast Day Boxes at Orthodox Christian Craft Supply.  The only thing I had to supply for the project was a couple of kinds of glue.  I did most of the "crafting" because I wanted them to make something lovely and their little hands weren't ready for some of the detail work.  However, they helped paint pieces and assisted in gluing on jewels and ribbon.  Older children could probably handle most parts of the crafts themselves.

I'm adding a button on the side of my blog for this wonderful resource.  The boxes are inexpensive and nicely organized.  When completed, children have a box that teaches many lessons of the particular feast but that is also, essentially, a box of toys!  My kids love to take out the box, put Mary in a princess castle, pull her around in their princess carriages, and generally make her an intimate part of their imaginative worlds.  With all the secular toys, secular images, and secular music that my children encounter, any way to insert Christ and the Church into their world on a more regular basis gets my approval!

***Addendum to the post: the Feast Day boxes also come with a teaching guide.  Before doing each little craft, I read the accompanying short story from the simply worded guide to give the kids an idea of why each item was in the box.***

A Faithful Saying

We Orthodox pray this prayer of St. John Chrysostom just before each time we receive communion:

I believe, O Lord, and I confess that thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I believe that this is truly thine own immaculate Body, and that this is truly thine own precious Blood. Wherefore I pray thee, have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance; and make me worthy to partake without condemnation of thine immaculate Mysteries, unto remission of my sins and unto life everlasting. Amen. Of thy Mystic Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of thy Mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the thief will I confess thee: Remember me, O Lord, in thy Kingdom. Not unto judgment nor unto condemnation be my partaking of thy Holy Mysteries, O Lord, but unto the healing of soul and body. 

I've had that bolded phrase in my head for a few weeks now. 

It's from the 1 Timothy:

15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (KJV)

St. Paul just zeros in at the end there, doesn't he?  All of a sudden, he's not talking in generalities.  In his mind and before God, he is the chief of sinners.

Improbable?

Yes.  But the Church grabs those words and gives them to me to say every time I receive communion.  Every time.  Doesn't matter what's going on in the world.  Online.  Next door.  Upstairs.  Doesn't matter.

When I come before God to receive the gift of His Son's body and blood, mine is to examine my own sins. While not bringing myself to complete discouragement over my flaws, I should simply be concerned with my own salvation.

I cannot claim this to be my first reaction to division or disappointment, not remotely.  In fact, more often than not, I reach that line and I simply fail to comprehend it.  But through its presence at every liturgy, Christ in his mercy allows this phrase—this prayer—to penetrate my mind and heart.

Eventually, I remember.  And though I don't understand, I pray it as the Church directs.  I rest in her judgment.

Two verses after that verse in 1 Timothy, I find this:

17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (KJV)

Amen.

John's Baptism Part 1: The Blanket

It's been nearly a month, I think, so I'm going to eat this elephant one bite at a time.  Matushka Anna, this part is for you.

The beautiful Patricia Blanket designed and crocheted by Matushka Anna.  Thank you!

 John pre-baptism posing on his blanket—he approves.

 Rescuing a caught toe.  John doesn't seem to care either way.  He's a mellow third child like that.

The blanket in action.  I think John is eating it.

Definitely eating it.  

 This is my favorite blanket shot.  (Doesn't know what's coming, does he?)

 

 John is being held by his godmother, my sister Ellie.  He is being entertained by our friend Liz.

Liz is good at making him smile.

 

It helps that he's very ticklish.  I made him laugh by tickling at about two months old.

Stay tuned for the rest to come!

Holy Hesitation

We yield all too easily to what we think we know and do not hesitate sufficiently before what we do not know.  That hesitation is often a moment of faithfulness or, at least, the moment in which faith can be born. The content of the Orthodox Christian faith is not an argument, it is not something to be compared to other things that we can say, "This is better!"  It is the continual life of God lived and known by his people, who through the ages, when confronted by manifold opportunities for more convenient options have been able to say, "and yet...."  When pressed by their enemies even to the point of torture and death, they have affirmed, "Nevertheless!" and in so doing have preserved the knowledge of the true and living God and kept intact the treasure of tradition that is nothing other than that true knowledge.  May God give us all such holy hesitation.  Glory to God!

~From Fr. Stephen Freeman's Glory to God podcast at Ancient Faith Radio.  Listen to the beginning of this episode here (choose "Knowing What We Do Not Know").

Mourning Lost Children

I just read about this year's International Wave of Light that took place on October 15 at 7PM.  I'll have to remember this for next year.  What a beautiful thing to be a part of—either with a parish or at home.  Did anyone else participate?

Orthodox Homeschooling Resources

I've begun compiling a list of my favorite Orthodox homeschooling resources over to the right in response to my Mom looking for many of these resources for a friend who doesn't use the internet.  Nearly all of the links listed take you to sites that have printable (and often free) resources.

Celebrating Holy Transfiguration

We will be attempting our first evening liturgy tonight since John's birth.  I'll let you know how it goes!

For the hours leading up to our departure time (early enough to pick up Daddy and drive to our sister parish about an hour away—or more during rush hour), we are working through Matushka Emily's list of things to do to celebrate this feast with children.  I printed it off and put it in my Cycles of Grace (seasonal home management) Notebook #5.  I've got most of it checked off—what practical and doable ideas!

For an icon of Transfiguration to display on my rotating art wall, I wish I had something that matches my collection of icons generously given (once-upon-a-time) by Mary.  However, instead of just wishing, I created my own in a similar style using this icon from www.oca.org:

Then for an icon for the kids to color (or paint, as we like to do), I downloaded a line drawing of the icon for the Transfiguration (scroll down the page to select the appropriate icon) from the OCA's Department of Christian Education website:

I grabbed a couple of matching white wire baskets (one for each girl) that used to house bath toys and gave them a good wash.  Then I threaded some blue and white ribbon through the holes around the middle of the basket and made a little off-centered bow.   I resisted the urge to add any more decoration since they looked so simple and beautiful the way they were.  We'll stop at a grocery store for grapes to fill those baskets on the way to church this afternoon.  Maybe I'll even get a photo of them at some point.

I also hunted around on the Antiochian Archdiocese website and found our collection of hymns (mostly byzantine style).   I located the Major Feasts page and scrolled down to the Transfiguration Series to download a PDF of music including the troparion for the Feast of Transfiguration.  We sang this at lunch time with our meal prayers.  We've also been playing our copy of Kh. Gigi Shadid's Celebrate the Feasts CD, paying special attention to the song about the Transfiguration.  (I love her CDs!)

Wow!  I feel like I'm back!  I in no way planned to be this proactive about finding ways to celebrate the Transfiguration with my girls today.  Matushka Emily just made it so darn easy and I just jumped in!  It's been fun, and we'll finish it up tomorrow with a special evening meal and lots of blessed grapes!

A Blessed Feast to you all!

He is merciful; we are forgiven

Molly Sabourin has a great post up!

Churching

I'm coming to the end of my 40 Days.  I had sort of intended to go back to church yesterday, but when it came down to it on Saturday afternoon, I didn't know where my clothes that fit and are presentable for church were, I hadn't laundered or picked clothes for either my baby or my older girls, I didn't really think we (I) could handle being out all day for church and then a wedding and reception on my first Sunday back, and my husband was away at a wedding rehearsal and couldn't help me if I'd wanted to tackle all these preparations just the night before.  Add to all of those things that my lochial bleeding seemed a wee bit worse this weekend and I'd really like it to stop already, since it really is almost gone!  (Sorry if that's TMI.)

So, since 40 days for me would be about Thursday this week, I decided to wait until next Sunday.  My parents will be in town anyway for my Dad's and sister's birthdays. (Chicago is a good converging point for everyone—aren't we lucky that we don't have to travel!)  I know they'll be happy to see (and help with) the Churching.

Anyway, I'm coming around to the point of this post (really!).  I wrote up a list of preparations I'd (ideally) like to finish this week before Sunday so that the day goes smoothly.  I thought I'd share it with you all since I know there are a few people who have just had babies recently:

Feel free to download, print, share, or whatever.

We'll see how much of this I do.  I really was brainstorming as much as I could think of so I know exactly what I'm leaving out if I don't do all of it instead of just forgetting to do something important while I instead focus on laundry or something that may not be as ultimately important.  Wish me luck!

40 Days of Patience

I am in a funny place, routine- and homemaking-wise, right now.  Three weeks ago, I birthed our third child.  As anyone who has had this experience knows, I am doing a lot of nursing, sleeping, not sleeping, and healing.  And with the healing comes bleeding, which brings me around to that weird place.

In order to make the bleeding stop as quickly as possible, I need to do as little as possible around the house.  In some ways it is freeing.  Spend as much time on the internet as I want?  Sure!  Go back to bed after breakfast?  Yes, please!  Watch another movie?  Why not?  Read another chapter of a giant novel?  Absolutely!

It is also the antithesis of what I normally try to accomplish with my days.  Usually, I try to put away what I take out when I'm finished.  I watch the floor for piles of crumbs or spills to clean up.  I monitor the laundry piles, and the dish piles, and the amount of food in the fridge.

Thanks to many hardworking women in my parish, we are receiving meals for the next few days.  Thanks to my mother and mother-in-law, we had in-home care for a few weeks beforehand.  And thanks to my tireless, child-loving brother, we have help now too.  I don't have to do most of what I normally do.  I can focus on mothering my baby.

My mantra right now is "almost anything can wait four weeks."  I recently read this in Dr. Sears's The Baby Book.  Actually, I'm waiting closer to six weeks.  And if I do as I plan, that means I'll be "going back" next Sunday (the 11th of July).  That's going to come up pretty quickly.  Seems this is a good time to practice living in the Here and Now and actively enjoy the rest of this precious newborn/postpartum period.

40 Days

Another fellow blogger, Matushka Emily, has a post up by Matushka Jenny Schroedel:

40 Days With Natalie

It's a great explanation theologically and medically of why women should rest during the 40 days following childbirth.  Maybe I'll post some of my own thoughts on this topic later.  At the moment, I am too sleep-deprived to write much of anything that might be considered coherent.

And I'm trying to observe my 40 days, so as soon as my husband comes home from the service for Sts. Peter and Paul, I'm going to bed!

Apostles' Fast and Summer Learning

While I am nearly through actively planning homeschool lessons for the summer, we will continue to do a few learning-type activities into Summer.  We'll be working through the Bob Books series along with the exercises designed to go along with them at Letters of Grace (at a lazy summer pace).

I'd like to increase our time outdoors (even if it's just sitting in our backyard) by getting into doing a Nature Notebook.  Keeping one of these journals by sketching wildlife (or taking photos?) can be a gentle introduction to the scientific world.  As a bonus, the drawing combines the subject with Art, and the notebook can include Poetry if you are creative.  I may start doing this on my own before I foist it on the girls.  If I do a few entries, they'll probably ask to make one of their own anyway.  Then, it's their idea, not mine!

Eventually, I'd like to purchase a copy of The Handbook of Nature Study, by Anna Botsford Comstock to facilitate our learning in this area.

Since we are nearly into the Apostles' Fast, I'd like to do some kind of activity related to the apostles with my kids (although, since I am about to give birth, I don't have any big plans).

Some of the resources I am considering include:

• The Holy Apostles at evlogia.typepad.com ~ a reading list: namely, we ordered this lovely book: The Twelve Apostles, by Marianna Mayer.

• Go and Make Disciples at craftycontemplative.wordpress.com ~ a Jesse-Tree-style list of twelve readings and accompanying symbols to color or craft.

• And for adults, my husband has alerted me to the book Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church, by Pope Benedict XVI ~ transcripted talks on several themes related to all of the apostles; on each apostle specifically; and on a few who were not numbered among the twelve, but worked alongside them.

Finally, for our summer education, we'll continue to use the Let Us Attend program at Antiochian.org to prepare for each Sunday's Gospel reading.  I like to do this on the Thursday or Friday before that particular gospel is read so the girls have something to listen for during the actual reading at church, and something to look for in the icon, if the coloring page corresponds to the one we will venerate at church.

With Bob Books, Nature Notebooks, a Let Us Attend activity each week, twelve apostles to read about from Ms. Mayer's book, and twelve readings and symbols from Go and Make Disciples, I think we will have plenty to keep us busy this Summer.  I'd like to lay out some of these resources in some kind of orderly fashion to give it some kind of structure (sound vague enough?), and if I do, I'll post it here.

Our Parish

A friend of mine has put up a beautiful set of photos of our church building on her blog.  It must have been from Bright Week because we still have the beautiful chaos of bay leaves from Holy Saturday adorning the floor.  If you're interested, check out...

Purple and Fine Linen

And our official website is here:

All Saints Orthodox Church

Homeschooling Notes

General Curricula

I have been spending a lot of time, recently, at one of my new favorite blogs, evlogia and its sub-site Letters of Grace.

Both are amazing resources. The former has lots of level-headed, humble advice and curricula for raising and educating (Orthodox) Christian kids. The latter is a work in progress: The authors of Letters of Grace are in the process of creating a nearly complete, Orthodox, early education home-schooling curriculum. And it is all offered free of charge. There are some costs involved, of course (printer ink, laminating resources, purchased story books, etc.), but many of the book titles that the curriculum relies upon are available from a local library. Content is being added to this site weekly.

Math

I am still determining what sort of math curriculum to use. Singapore Math and Math-U-See are the two I am considering at the moment. Maybe I will come to a point where I know what my kids need in the math department and can sort of create my own math curriculum from flash cards and various available online resources, but at least for the first year, I'd like a more complete curriculum.

Reading

We've also just ordered the first three sets of the Bob Books to use in teaching Maggie (and our subsequent children) to read. Letters of Grace includes Language Lessons to enrich the Bob Books series and encourage actual reading (not just memorization and narration of pictures). Maggie is enjoying using the color-coded manipulative alphabet (which I recently printed, laminated, and cut apart--have I mentioned that I love to laminate?) to spell our names.

Faith

We have been working on a Lent and Holy Week Main Lesson Book record of the kids' icon illustrations and a few other things we've been doing during these seasons. (For an idea of what a Main Lesson Book is, click here.) I'm really pleased with how they are turning out--mainly, I like having somewhere to put their artwork that isn't simply the trash. And I could see us pulling these back out to bring to church next Lent and Pascha. Primarily, it's become a nice record of the simple religious lessons we've done over the last few weeks.

Thoughts

I am conflicted about whether to do any more with our old Five in a Row curriculum, what with our excitement over Letters of Grace and our impending Baby. I have one book checked out (and, I think, planned out) that I could do another series of lessons with. And with our faith lessons and the Bob Books on the way, we will have things to keep us busy.

I'm not sure if I'm struggling more with the curriculum in particular, or with time-management in general. The girls are getting so good at playing on their own that I find myself uninterrupted at the computer for long stretches of time--which is great for my sanity, but lousy for getting anything done with the kids and their schooling or with the house (although I have been in a good routine with that recently--more on that later, perhaps). But when I puzzle over these questions for a while, I usually remind myself that in a few weeks, baby #3 will be here, and then most everything will be out the window, schedule-wise, anyway.

Mostly, we have at least been focusing on our religious lessons for Lent and Pascha, as I mentioned above. And when I feel this is inadequate, I remember this passage by St. Theophan the Recluse:

Let instruction be so arranged that it will be evident what is the main point and what is secondary.... Let the study of faith be considered the chief thing. Let the best time be assigned to works of piety and in case of conflict let them take the first place over learning. Let approval be given not only for success in learning, but likewise for faith and good behavior. In general, one must so dispose the mind of pupils that they do not lose the conviction that our chief work is the pleasing of God....