It's Almost Lent!

This weeks starts Lent! I'm very excited this year for some reason. Dominic is doing kind of an enforced fasting/sacrifice, and by default Christopher is as well. Dominic can understand why he's being asked to sacrifice (he definitely doesn't like it, but he understands!), but Christopher doesn't. I wonder if that means that his sacrifice is more meaningful. Who knows! Anyway, the boys (and also by default-me) are giving up electronics before school is done. We used to always do this anyway, but when I was not getting much sleep I was letting the boys do that so that I could sleep in. Yes, yes, bad momming I know. So, we are getting back to that; in addition we will not have electronics for any meals any more. We do well with dinner, but if we are having lunch at home I often let them eat with their devices, but I'm going to stop that. I'm hoping that at the end of Lent we are better positioned to continue both of those habits.

Since fasting and abstaining is not technically required for the boys (though they abstain when we do anyway, I do enough double cooking, I'm not adding extra for that), I'm going to try to get Dominic to do a small fast weekly. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday these will be bigger, but on Fridays I'm thinking it will be something like only eating main meals, no snacks/dessert. I'm trying to guide him without forcing, but I know that he does need the specific direction as well.

Jason ordered this book, and it's been kind of fun to go through her list of Lenten sacrifice suggestions. I'll be real, some are weirdly intense, and some don't seem intense at all. For example, one that is listed as an advanced sacrifice is to not use your dishwasher, we don't have one anyway; but another one the beginning suggestion is not eating out and the advanced is growing your own food. Ummm, that takes way more planning than I've ever given Lent and I've been known to start thinking about Lent during ADVENT. I mean for real, that would require living in the right place and A LOT of pre-planning. There are some really good suggestions though, and I'm pretty excited to go through the rest of the year with her.

We are very excited that the first Sunday in Lent we will be attending Low Mass at an FSSP parish in Denver. It is 3 hours away, but we are feeling a calling to a more traditional Mass. Bonus is that there is no music at low Mass, so hopefully Christopher will approve! :)

That's it for now! I plan to post some recipes during Lent and some other things about our Lenten sacrifices and how things are going. I will also hopefully be able to post some pictures next week from the FSSP parish we attend!