Fall Session of St. Brigid's

Well, it's been a while since I blogged.

This fall session of school, we are studying Nature Study for science, and working on the Cub Scout Wildlife badge and the Wisconsin Junior Ranger badge.

Other classes include:
Math (addition and subtraction review)
Geography: Maps and Rivers (working on Geography requirements for Cub Scouts)
Spelling
Reading
Grammar and writing (working on Communications requirements for Cub Scouts)
World Literature Greek myths, Irish Myths
Bible Study
Piano
Art

We are big on field trips ever since we got the new car. Here are some of the things we have done this year so far:

3 trips to Brookfield zoo (and another one tomorrow)
Thorn Creek Forest Preserve Cleanup
Fair Oaks Farm (dairy farm) tour, including seeing a calf being born
Goodenow Grove Forest Preserve Fall Festival
Pinhook Bog (Indiana Dunes national lake shore)
Fungus Hunt in Goodenow Grove
Dissecting Owl Pellets
Olld-fashioned fall festival at Spring HIll nature center in Schamburg.

In addition, Kiddo belongs to Cub Scouts, 4-H, Modern Woodmen of America, a homeschool club, and a model train club. He is going to go back to hockey as soon as I can afford it.

4-H is studying Ireland for the International Fair. Ted also signed him up for about 11 projects. I hope he plans to help---a LOT!

Comet Lulin!

We got to see Comet Lulin tonight. It was very dim but definitely observable with the naked eye. Mostly it was just a blur between Saturn and Regulus, but still very cool. I have never seen a comet before at all. And I am so proud of myself for finding it, because I have been to a dozen planetarium shows where they show you how to find all the stars and so forth, and I NEVER see anything once I get out on my own.

Ivan Carlos

Yesterday a baby died in Chicago. His name was Ivan Carlos and he was only 2 ½ months old. His tiny little life was lived out in a cramped filthy apartment with as many as 18 other people, many of them children. He lived surrounded by dirty clothes, rotting food, and cockroaches.

What must that baby’s life have been? Two and one-half months of filth, likely accompanied by hunger and neglect. Two and one-half months, frightened and alone, maybe hurt and abused. I used to know the kind of people who live crammed into dirty apartments. They are not the kind of people who make loving parents. They scream at hungry infants, rather than comfort or feed them. They sell their food stamps for drug money. They are the kind of people who don’t care about themselves, much less the creature they happened to conceive and by some accident deliver.

I wonder about the pro-life people, and whether they listen to the news. Don’t they hear things like this? How could anybody, anybody, in their right mind imagine that allowing that child to live for 10 weeks in a squalid hell is in some way a good thing? How can they think that forcing women who don’t want children to have children will have a good result? Forcing every woman who happens to get pregnant to bear out the pregnancy will only result in more horror stories like little Ivan Carlos.

Where are the pro-life people when things like this are happening? Once the unwanted babies are born, who takes care of them? If these people were really pro-life, why are they not working toward improving the quality of life for babies everywhere? Why don’t they see to it that the egg-donors of babies like Ivan Carlos have access to decent birth control? Why don’t they take adoption counseling into the inner city, where it can help babies like Ivan Carlos get a new start with loving families? Why oh why don’t they make any effort to help all the thousands of unwanted babies being born every day all over the world?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to help the unwanted babies already living in the world to improve their lot in life? Wouldn’t that be a greater good to the world, or a greater testament to the glory of God, if that’s how you roll? Why should they track down all those women who at least have the sense to know they are not ready for motherhood, and force them to shoulder a burden they don’t want? How on earth does that help anybody?

It sure does not help all the Ivan Carloses in the world.

May he find peace at last.