Seven Quick Takes vol 49?

Here's my quick take contribution of the day-I'm not writing a book so be forewarned!

Getting sooo excited for Jen's book and wishing her the best of luck finishing up!!

{one}

First off, guess what day it is?! Encyclical Day!! I've named it because I'm that excited. I'm a total geek. I know. 

I get excited at the prospect of reading a new encyclical! I attribute this completely to the Magisterial Thought course I took at beloved Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy (Shout out!). Because before I took said class I was fairly certain papal encyclicals were just boring tomes written to be purposefully boring because Catholics need extra boring things to read. Oh, and they were also written to just outlaw anything fun.

But no they're not those things at all! They're interesting, and prophetic, and completely "with the times", and speak about all the important things in life! Basically papal encyclicals are awesome. I woulda taken a Papal Thought major if I could have.

{two}

As an aside, do you know how badass I felt when I knew what "Lumen Fidei" meant without needing a translation? Yes, its really basic latin and only two words, but knowing them made me feel extremely smart. I mean, all those latin courses I barely stayed awake through have really paid off.

{three}

So I haven't read the encyclical yet, because it came out this morning AND I have five kids-geezz give me a break people! But here's the link to the actual text and heres a handy article on its key phrases which I found helpful. And here's just the first beautiful quote I've gleaned from the paragraph on faith and family: 

 "In the family, faith accompanies every age of life, beginning with childhood: children learn to trust in the love of their parents. This is why it is so important that within their families parents encourage shared expressions of faith which can help children gradually to mature in their own faith." 

I'm looking forward to hearing Francis's clear and challenging voice in this encyclical and seeing how he furthers Pope Benedict's teachings and theological themes. Its a perfect combination of Pope-thought!

{four}

One of life's greatest mysteries is this strange time-warp that happens to the stay at home mom.

I swear I get up in the morning and all of a sudden its 5 o'clock and I need to start getting supper going. Its as if my whole day evaporates! I honestly don't know where the time goes. I honestly sometimes question what I've done all day. Obviously its take care of children. But some days! Also, in complete contradiction to the days whizzing by, the weeks creep along. It takes forever to reach the weekend! Why?? Why I ask you!?

Do you find this to be the case? Is it just because I have five kids and can't sit down between answering to their beck and calls and toilet issues??

{five}

I honestly can't remember the last time I was bored. I know a lot of stay at home moms deal with this and I understand it, the child-rearing drudgery can rear its ugly head often but real genuine boredom? I think I was bored a couple times when I had one kid. Since then I can't think of a time. A holiday would be sometime where I could go someplace and be bored. 

{six}

That all being said I think I'm reaching that magical time in my postpartum season where I just. want. a. couple. hours. alone. 

I haven't been away from Nora for more than two hours. She's 14 weeks old now. And I'm not even complaining that much, but its starting to hit me that I would like a chunk of time away, by myself, doing anything really, or nothing, alone. For most people alone time is a given. But for parents and especially nursing mothers is like a complete foreign concept. To be honest I kinda envy my husband's two hours a day of alone time he spends commuting to and from work! I don't think its a weird thing to want is it? Should I feel guilty? Well, I shouldn't waste my time worrying about the feeling guilty part because I don't see an opportunity for this to happen anytime soon. But I'm going to try and eek out an hour maybe sometime this weekend?? I don't know. Its probably a losing battle. I can be alone when I'm dead...oh wait...

{seven}

I really love this summer stuff for the record. Every day I wake up thankful there's no snow and my children can go outside for a few minutes without me clothing them anew. Nora's growing and being all cute and precious and three month's old. Max is still refusing to speak a word, yet his personality per pound ratio is out of sight! Luke is even asking me before he does strange and destructive things! Dom is astounded that we have so many flammable things in our home. And Gemma has been a princess for about three days straight and has informed her brothers that attendance to the wedding she'll be putting on this afternoon is mandatory. 

Summer is good. 

Happy weekend one and all! Hope all my American friends had a lovely 4th!