5 Quick Things #331 🎉

unstructured play, self-confidence, universal homemaking, & resurrected Sharpies

May 17, 2024

Hey there,

Today is our official last day of homeschooling in our home, and we are so very eager… The boys are giving history presentations this weekend, they’ve written essays and narration paragraphs galore, and they’ve finished reading the books and filling the commonplace journals. Cue the confetti: we. are. DONE! And phew… What a roller coaster of a school year this was for us. A good one, but a challenging one. Lots of growth for every member of our clan.

Bring on the swimming holes, garden tomatoes, and thick poolside novels!

*Summer evening. River*, by Isaac Levitan (1894) #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. I’ve been a big believer in free-range parenting from day one, and now that my oldest is almost out of her teen years, I can look back and say I’m glad we made the choices we made. Whenever I was nervous about a potentially risky decision we’d make about what we’d allow our kids to do, I reminded myself of the Scandinavian proverb, “The safest place for a child is five feet high in a tree.”
Amber Adrian
wrote a fantastic piece unpacking her thoughts on the benefits of free-range parenting: “It’s countercultural these days to let your kids play freely outside. It just is. So at first, people might think you’re weird. It definitely takes a boldness, but you gotta get out there. Be friendly. Hold the vision. …Kids may also take time to adjust to unstructured play. Many kids are used to a lot of stimulation and schedules (being told what to do when), so this type of vibe can be a change! Be patient and let them be bored.”
2. Homes are places we make — that is, we can decide a particular place is where we store our stuff, however temporary, or we can decide that a particular place will be declared Our Home and make it thus. I loved Mary Grace Mangano’s piece on our universal ache for home, why we’re all called to the work of homemaking, and why it is just that — hard work: “In a sense, we all need to think of ourselves as homemakers, even if our primary work is outside the home. We should all be people who are ‘looking after our home.’ In our communities—our workplaces, schools, churches, neighborhoods—we make homes by looking after them. When we take time to know the people in these places and look after them, we will find ourselves at home. This kind of love and attention requires real work.”
3. Self-confidence is underrated, and I like
Eugene Terekhin
’s straightforward advice on how to develop more of it: “To tap into it, you need to: 1. Think about 1-2 things you are already good at (if you can’t, try to remember what other people say to you about the things you are good at). 2. Do these things more. 3. Feel the energy of soaring on the wings of enthusiasm.”
4. The Theology of the Body might be one of Pope St. JPII’s most gracious gift to the modern world — and yet it’s so full and so thorough that it’s often …intimidating. I’m excited, therefore, about Fr. Mike Schmitz’s new, short video series unpacking the TOB. He’s got a gift for explaining things in plain language, so I’m eager to hear what he has to say about our “modern anthropology.”
5. And finally, I typically side-eye most online listicles, but most of these life hacks were legitimately new to me. (I’m going to try #18 and #31 this weekend…)

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📻

Last year’s Summer Chill playlist (I still gotta make this year’s summer mixtape)

Quotable 💬

“There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.”

-Lemony Snicket

What’s the ideal Mother’s Day gift? 🎁

I know not everyone here is a mother, but all were invited to answer this question because really, it’s more about which option sounds like the most pleasant surprise. As always, it depends on the day as to my answer, but right now, I’m going with a clean house I didn’t clean (*stares at floor underneath my feet that desperately needs mopping*).

A clean house you didn’t clean: 35.7%
Good food you didn’t cook: 32.1%
For everyone to get along: 11.5%
A nap: 7.2%
Something from your wish list: 6.9%
Something homemade: 6.5%