I Know it is Easter, but it is Never to Late to Talk About Lenten Stational Churches!

I am being commanded to rest today by my dear husband. I will blog soon about out eventful trip to the ER and the passing of our little miscarried baby yesterday. For now, while I bum around the house on my couch I am finally getting to sharing our great Lenten family devotional we did this year.
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Normally, when one thinks of "stations" during Lent, one thinks of the Stations of the Cross. These are wonderful for praying with during Lent. We decided to do another type of station this Lent: the stational churches of Rome. The Pope used to celebrate Mass in a different Roman church everyday for all of Lent; there are also stations for other liturgical seasons. The Pontifical North American College still follows the tradition of attending Mass at each of the stational churches. There is a more detailed history of the tradition on their site. Since we are not in Rome (though maybe we will be blessed with a Rome semester at some point), we are marking the stations on a map.

Here we have our giant laminated map of Rome. M bought this during our visit to Rome while we were studying abroad. It is pretty neat and has a lot of the churches marked already.

Then I went to the New Liturgical Movement and found their posts on the Stations from a few years ago and complied a list and photos of each stational church. I also made another document that has teeny tiny photos with the comparable number from the first document. These I printed, cut out, and "laminated" in clear packing tape (I like to think of that as being resourceful).

 I think they are pretty cute!

Compared to a pen in size.

Every day of Lent we took out our document that told us what the stational church was that day and read about the church from our Lenten volume of Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year (St. Thérèse of Liseux and her family used his works). 

Here it is with our traditional St. Andrew Missal.

We used the map in the St. Andrew Missal to find the location of each church and then stuck them to the map with sticky tack. Well, stick tack mixed with pink silly putty. Some child of ours got into those two items last year, and may have needed a hair cut because of it.

It was neat to "travel" around Rome during Lent, especially knowing that the NAC seminarians and priests were actually celebrating Mass at the stational church each day. The kids loved gazing at the map, looking at the pictures of churches, and discussing how the martyr saints died. Even F got in on it and said "I SEE! I SEE!" until we showed her the pictures.

Now, if you want to see a real family tour of Rome, I highly recommend my friend Mary's posts from Holy Week, Easter Week, and the canonizations of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope St. John XXIII. I linked her April archives because she has about two weeks worth of awesomeness to look through.

In Which She Picked Her Own Clothes Before a Well Visit and Mondays

Photo by Morgan. Used under Creative Commons license.

Last Monday was a rough sort of day. We were still dealing with the miscarriage news (well, let's just be honest, we still are), and I had to take G to the doctor for a scheduled well-child visit which was supposed to be in conjunction with a progesterone injection. M and I barely got up to get me ready in time and I left the kids to his care as I took a rare morning shower and drank my coffee. G even got a bath since she had spent the previous day playing outside on a farm. We had gotten home too late for baths the night before. At least we were clean before we went in.

I am always thrown off at well-child visits for G, since they have a new set of questions for each particular age. I suppose there is a list somewhere, but really, I am trying to avoid the "is my child on track with the standard expectations for her age" mentality. So, anyway, our doctor and I began by discussing if I had any concerns about G and we discussed her random food allergies (eggplant, banana, and watermelon) for awhile and decided to get an epi-pen for her in case we ever need it. Then Dr. went through her list; I was able to answer confidently on all the questions, until she asked if she could draw a triangle and a square. I fumbled for an answer. The last time I had tested her on that was last Spring when we finished her capital letter handwriting book. I said I was not sure, and Dr. suggested that it was just something we should check on. I did not even think to mention that G can write all of her lower case letters, capital letters, and numbers. Those are far more complex than shapes. I felt like our home schooling seemed like a failure. I hope to jokingly correct my mistake when we go in next. But then we got to the "safety" section. No, we have not sat down specifically to do safety things, but I remind her to look both ways at streets, stay away from strangers, and whenever I set off the fire alarm with my cooking G is very aware and ready to run to the back fence. So, maybe we have safety down after all. Except for the memorization of address thing, and phone numbers.

But then we got to the physical part, and when G removed her shoes, I saw that the socks she had picked for herself, were her sparest of spare socks. The ones I have not pitched, because on some cold winter night they might have been her last clean pair to keep her toes warm. They both had absolutely no heel. But they also were pink, and they were loved. Think the velveteen rabbit of socks. Of course she picked them for herself, but I could not help but be embarrassed that I brought my child to the doctor in holey socks when she has plenty of non-holey ones.

Then, as Dr. was listening to G's lungs, she informed me that G had pneumonia. Pneumonia from that little virus the children and I all had the week before. She had been fever-free for three days, but had an occasional phlegmy cough; I could not believe it. My poor under-dressed daughter, who can dress herself like a five year old should, had pneumonia. We had kept her out late two nights before and let her play in the windy farm air the day before. It was not that severe of pneumonia since she was happily playing most of the time, but still, there it was.

Also, G was crushed, because she has been talking about getting her five year old shots since she was three. And told the nurse and doctor about how she could not wait to get her shots. But now she does. No shots when you have pneumonia! She should get them in a few weeks with F. Anyway, that was last Monday.

Let's just say I was a bit flustered on last Monday, and understandably so, but the perfectionist in me could not handle it.

So, I brought her home, and M watched the kids and I did some clothes shopping, finally finding a few tops and skirts I liked. I have been perusing racks for months. I did not have the heart to go to Bread Co. alone, like we were planning so I grabbed some Jimmy John's on the way home.

This Monday is a gloomy one. It is raining non-stop. It is supposed to rain all week. Apparently, this nasty, chilly, rainy weather is making way for nice warm spring and summer weather, which we all could go for around here. At least it is not snowing. We had a snow storm last May, but hopefully no more this year.

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, April 25

1. First of all, thank you all for your prayers during our time of loss of our tiny baby. It was hard for me to share what was going on; it almost seemed easier to keep it private. But since I asked for prayers, I have felt an abundance of grace helping us through this time. I am even finding myself quite happy and hopeful a lot of the time, and remembering our loss is less painful.

2. Today, in addition to being Easter Friday, is also the Feast of St. Mark, which happens to be M's name day. To celebrate, since we are having dinner with our parish home school community, I had the girls make cards for M. I gave them a quick example of a lion drawing, and realized my poor drawing skills:

The girls did a fairly good imitation of mine:

L (3) drew a mouse-like lion, drew M,  and traced capital letters.

G (5) did a lion, her father, lots of hearts, and her name, which is edited out... She also tried to write the date and gave up.

Drawing, check. Writing practice, check. Religion, check. Pre-school for the day, done.

3. When I picked out earrings today, G insisted on me wearing my lions. I think I last wore these to the zoo.

Earring selfie! (Sorry, M, I had to use that word; I know you hate it.)

I am pretty sure I got these from my awesome friend, C, in college, but I do not remember. I had a little thing about lions back before I knew M. Maybe it was a premonition? I am working up the gusto to wear them to evening Mass today. Maybe my veil will hide their ridiculousness.

4. I spent yesterday morning distracting myself by doing a little editing of my blog formatting. Do you see what I did? Any suggestions for other pages/tabs? I could collect things like recipes or posts in certain topics into other pages. Maybe I can delve into home organization next week, as opposed to virtual, while the weather is crummy and rainy. My intentions of organizing during the Winter months vanished with a busy schedule and visiting St. Louis a few times to see my dad.

5. Saturday, during our Easter preparations, M went out to the garden to plant a blueberry bush he bought on an impulse from Aldi. While digging, he found the den of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter Rabbit. Flopsy and Peter got away immediately, but the other two sat cowering in corners of the garden until M placed them back in their den. The girls thought it was great fun and wanted to keep them, but everything we Googled recommended against it. F (17 months) could not get enough of them and stood by the garden fence saying, "Buh-ee! Buh-ee!" And when I made her bid them farewell her voice became mournful and sad, "Buh-ee... buh-ee..."

Cottontail scared and cold.

When we checked the den on Tuesday, they were gone. The thing is, we thought our garden was rabbit-proof, and now we find that a pregnant rabbit found a way in to give birth and has been returning twice a day to feed her babies. We might have to get the anti-rabbit spray after all to protect our garden from Peter and his cousin Benjamin.

6. If you are my friend on Facebook, you have already heard about F stealing L's jelly beans. This toddler is quite into her candy. I was keeping the baskets on the table, and she was climbing right up, finding foil-wrapped candies, declaring them to be, "Choc!" and biting right through the foil with her sharp front teeth. She is a little obsessed with chocolate; I wonder where she gets that? I cannot reliably get her to eat foods besides scrambled eggs, meat, processed cheeses, and candy. I guess we have another picky one on our hands, which is too bad because she was really into fruit and vegetables back when they were her only foods. Well, M can get her to eat anything, so as long as he is at a meal, she eats.

7. Last of all, the gracious hostess of Seven Quick Takes, Jen is releasing her book Something Other Than God next week. It is about her conversion to Catholicism from atheism, and should be a good read. I was not cool enough to pre-order it, but I promise I will read it once I get a hold of a copy. :)