A squandered week

The weather has been beautiful this week, but we haven't been out to enjoy it because of too much busyness. On Tuesday we kicked off a sacrament preparation period for Adrienne with a meeting at church. She will have her first reconciliation in late November and first holy communion in the spring. Though reception of these sacraments will be reason to celebrate, parents are expected to attend too many explanatory meetings in the meantime . In my not at all humble opinion on this subject, this is due to the wretched catechesis lay Catholics have received over the past several decades. Annoying though these meetings may be, I'm glad our parish is concerned enough to take the time to re-educate its members, and hopefully there will be fewer ignorant Catholics in the pews. Do I sound a little bitter? Alas, I am.
Switching gears - yesterday Adrienne had 3 teeth pulled at the dentist, poor kid. Her teeth are too crowded and the permanent ones are coming in a little wonky. I'm sure we'll be regulars at the orthodontist in a few years. The tooth fairy had pity on her and left her $5 instead of a quarter. Nicky also had an appointment yesterday - he'd been having eye pain and apparently has a small abrasion on his cornea. Some ointment 3x a day for 5 days should help it heal. Goodness, what kids won't do for a little attention! He is looking forward to a field trip to the apple orchard during preschool today, though mom and dad are still trying to figure out why it costs eight bucks to go. I have mentioned in a previous entry the &$#@ amount of homework my kids get assigned every night. *begin vent* This is a major time killer. I really think their teachers underestimate how long it takes to do. Michael typically has homework in multiple subjects - read 20 mins, write 20 minutes, study spelling, math worksheet, Word-A-Day (takes him forever to look up the word!) weekend geography homework etc., and he needs supervision to stay on task. It seems too close to the late high school/college model of instruction at school, and then do all the homework on your own time. The system needs an overhaul. Argh...I shouldn't even go there, as homework could be it's own blog entry. I'll leave it at that and try to think of something more positive to share next time. *end vent*