House Art Journal

I'm amazed by how things come together at times. Here was our centerpiece for last Sunday. I had bought the flowers in honor of my aunt who was visiting, and when she came, she brought me a present from another aunt: the blue glass candlestick holders. And when I wasn't looking, my young daughter found the purple candles and put them in the holders. It's always fun when the weather gets warm to change the dark purple palette to lilac, just before Easter. Anyhow, it was a beautiful centerpiece, and a joint effort, and I thought I'd share it. :) Peace to your day.

What I love about babies is what I call "whole-body looking." This is my youngest, encountering our pond for the first time this season. I love the wind blowing ripples in the background. Thank God for beautiful spring days.

Since we were talking about toddlers doing "adult work" in the Montessori thread, I thought I'd post this picture of my Thomas's bed after he finished making it (with adult help). He was proud of how it looked and so was I!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my sons Joshua and Thomas sword-fighting in our front yard this past spring. Like a lot of parents, I'm not comfortable with my toddlers playing with guns. But since young boys need to fight, I've found that swords are a great option. A sword (as Ben Kenobi says of lightsabers) is "a noble weapon, of a more civilized age." What's so civilized about stabbing and cutting? Isn't killing someone with a sword more horrible than using a bullet? Why is it morally better to encourage our sons to approach fighting this way? For one thing, swords force you to fight your foe face-to-face, man-to-man. When swordfighting is done to the death in real life, it literally forces you to face the bloody mess that is killing. Unlike the wielder of a machine gun, who can kill with detached mercilessness, killing with a sword takes effort - lots of effort. Killing is a weighty, grave business, and it should take effort. You should realize w...

Being 1/4th Italian and not a bit Irish, I cultivate an air of studied disinterest about St. Patrick's day. But my husband, who has Irish in the mix, and my children, are much more enthusiastic. My daughter Rose spent several weeks planning the celebration, which began with one of our big family breakfasts. Rose created green orange juice and a green fruit salad and I got in the spirit with some green-marbled scones. Then we set the table, using lots of white for contrast, and every green table linen we owned (pressing some quilt fat quarters into service to round out the place settings). My husband read St. Patrick's Breastplate as grace before the meal. And after breakfast we spent some time tracing some of their Irish ancestors back to the 1850 potato famine, which made me (whose Slavic/Italian forbears seemed to have quarreled with their families before setting out to America, since they never passed down any sort of contact information to the rest of us) feel a little jeal...

A few posts ago, Loraine asked me about whether or not the Montessori method was compatible with Catholicism, because “I am wary of the idea that children need always to be choosing for themselves. This seems contrary to the Catholic understanding of human nature – since the Fall our desires tend in the wrong directions.” And she had a few other questions I’d like to address. It took me a while to prepare a longer post, but here it is. In answering Loraine’s question, I’m going to speak about the Montessori Method for children aged 3-6 (there are other methods for ages 6-12 and 12-18). One generally unknown fact about Maria Montessori is that she was a devout Catholic , and her method is steeped in the Catholic understanding of the human person. She believed in the Fall, and understood that small human beings need moral guidance. But because she also believed in post-baptismal innocence and that our God Himself became a Child, she recommended that the Montessori teacher approach the ch...

Spring stole upon us this week ... the air was so warm and sweet it was intoxicating, it pulled you outside into the sunshine, blinking and stretching, and urged you in melodious tones to sit down and put your feet up and just breathe... So I have been getting next to nothing done. But I did take this picture of our ancient House Tree outside the girls' window. I really want to respond to questions you all have asked me, and thank so many new people for visiting ... but ... I'll be getting around to it, I promise!

When I was a kid, I had the perpetual "absent-minded professor" look, with everything that implies. My own kids appear to have inherited my genes in that regard, plus my super-fine hair that looks bedraggled again five minutes after it's brushed... Last week, at my husband (who is meticulous about his personal appearance, thank God) suggested we add "personal grooming" to the homeschool curriculum. So I set up a mirror, a comb, brush, and cup of water and tried to demonstrate combing and wetting down hair to the three-year-old (the older ones fortunately had more of an idea of what to do). He became really enthusiastic, and when he finished, our baby took over. For about a half hour she sat and brushed and combed her hair till it was wet and dripping... Maria Montessori says to notice when kids are engrossed in a motor activity such as this one, and when at all possible, don't disturb them until they've finished. Scientists say they're growing...

When she was a teenager, my sister Alicia Hernon came up with the idea of the "clothing fast." During Lent, she limited her wardrobe to a handful of multipurpose garments, about ten, for the duration of the forty days. It was she who gave me the idea of applying Catholicism to the wardrobe in ways beyond modesty. I've experimented with different ways of dressing ever since: when I was single, I conceived of the idea of the Seven Dress Wardrobe, which I've long since abandoned as impractical at this stage in my life (But it worked great when I was single!). These days I keep "liturgical dressing" to the barest outlines, but one easy parameter to meet is Lent. My Lenten clothing fast is as simple as this: I put off changing from my winter wardrobe to my spring wardrobe until Easter. Now that the weather has taken a decided turn for the warm here in Virginia, this is when the "clothing fast" becomes hard: it's hard to wear black shoes and car...

When we first moved into our house, I hung this picture as a place-holder to fill the gap between bedroom doors, and it's been there ever since. I can't get over how nice it looks. My daughter Rose had a school assignment to paint a bird, and she executed this really lovely bluejay. I didn't want to lose this picture, so I stuck it into a frame -- a cracked cheap pink frame. I didn't have a mat, so I just positioned it in the center of the gray cardboard backing. But .... it works. Better than some of my professionally-matted pictures. Go figure. Just goes to show that Beauty can alight anywhere it chooses....

I love Anna's toy corner for her two girls. Their house is too small for a playroom, so Anna stores her toys on a shelf and in baskets in the corner of their bedroom. I believe Ben made the shelf, but I'm not sure. A soft rug delineates the play area and separates it visually from the "adult" area of the bedroom. Notice how the kids are instinctively playing with their blocks within the confines of the rug - the rug is just the right size to give them a "boundary." Maria Montessori recommended shelves for toys instead of toy bins, so that a child can pick out what he wants (without having to dig out and hurl away everything he doesn't want, which most kids tend to do). As a mom, I find shelves help reinforce (not that I always get around to enforcing, let alone reinforcing, btw) the idea that you play with one toy, you put it away, and then you choose another toy. When you take a toy off of a (neatly arranged) shelf, it leaves an empty place ...

Another cold morning here... I took this picture a few weeks ago when I was waiting for my herbal tea to steep. Delicious anticipation.

A child can't have too many beautiful good books. Leastaways, that's what I feel (my husband has begged to differ). So whenever relatives or friends wanted to give our children toys, and I had a feeling they would send us plastic toys, I would suggest that they give us good and beautiful books. This can be a wonderful strategy for reducing gift-toy clutter and it's worked for us! But of course, not all children's books are created equal, and some toy-spinoff books (ie: Barbie, Transformers) are just as as obnoxious as the toys themselves (and create the need in the child for the featured toy). Plus there are some children's books that are simply stupid. So what to do...? You can suggest titles. And I had another idea from Sandra Miesel : she observed that the best children's illustrators out there won't illustrate junk. So if the pictures are breathtakingly beautiful, chances are the story is up to par. And for older kids, you can always reco...

Ah.... what I would be doing if I wasn't a grown-up. As today has been one hectic day, I thought that in rebellion I would post this old picture of baby Joan in her bassinet on her lambskin with Earendil the Siamese Cat. Enjoy the day!