Monthly Archives: December 2007

12.22.07
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I’ve been blog-blessed

Barb blessed me, and now I’m passing on the blessing.

The idea… it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for three blog friends. By participating in this endeavour we not only make the recipients of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the bloggin’ blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a bloggin’ blessing may upload the above image to their sidebar if they choose to. If you receive a bloggin’ blessin’ please leave a comment on this thread here so that we can rejoice in just how many blessings have been sent around the world!
I bless….Jennie, Angoraknitter, and Cris.

I bless Jennie, Angoraknitter, and Cris because.… they are married to men in the military which affords unique and difficult challenges to living a faith-filled life, raising children, and acheiving domestic peace.

A Prayer for Jennie, Angoraknitter, and Cris…may the blessing of almighty God, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, come down upon you and remain with you forever. Amen.
+++
and that’s it, nearly…
So, all Jennie, Angoraknitter, and Cris now have to do is to:
a) bless 3 blog buddies each.
b) Include the ‘God Bless you’ image in their post.
c) Explain briefly why they are blessing the people they are blessing.
d) pray/include in the post the prayer for the recipients of the blessing.
e)The recipient/sender of a blessing should type in the com box of this very post that a blessing has been sent to them so we can keep track of how many blessings are being given.
12.21.07
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You can put a child in bed, but you can’t make him sleep.

And a thirsty horse has more sense than an exhausted toddler.

My kids are spooled up. Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, packages seem to arrive every day by post (or by Brown), and then said packages disappear, cookies are baking, decorations are going up, we’re going to parties, the kids are drinking soda and staying up late. My older ones know that the real fun hasn’t even begun yet, and are getting antsier by the minute.

Within the hour, my boys will wake up and Billy will say, “It’s three more days until Christmas!” And Fritz will respond, “Three days and a wake up!” That’s what they do, every morning.

All of my kids seem to be having a bit of difficulty getting to sleep, some are even getting up earlier than normal, and everybody’s moods are a bit more…delicate. The worst one, though, is Peter. He fights his naps, despite demonstrating all morning long that he is in desperate need of one. If he manages to fall asleep, a big IF, he might sleep for an hour instead of his usual 2 or 3. Then he’s miserable all afternoon long, but when bedtime comes, he fights that too. Instead of compensating by sleeping late the following morning, he may wake one or more times at night and get up earlier than normal in the morning.

And then it begins again. Each day has been just a bit worse than the day before.

This morning I felt so bad for the kid. He climbed into my bed at some early hour. But from 4 am until after 5, he tossed and turned like a true insomniac. I finally offered to rock him in the chair in his room. First he tried his own bed and rolled around there. Then he let me rock him as I silently prayed a rosary with the intention of this poor child to get some rest. He seemed to be asleep, and three decades later I tried to put him in bed. He woke up. I brought him downstairs and put on Noggin, hoping he would zone out in front of the TV. He rolled around on the couch and then the floor, trying to get comfortable, trying to go back to sleep. Finally I had him snuggle on my lap until he was snoring soundly. He’s there now, but I doubt he’ll get more than an hour of rest before the din of the day wakes him.

I’ve never given my kids Benedryl, but I think this kid needs some help.

I think this mom needs some help.

12.20.07
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Adventures in Sledding

After Mass last Sunday, a parishioner asked my kids if they had been sledding. They assured him they had. Had they been on Suicide Hill? he asked. No, just the hills in our neighborhood.

My kids wanted to know where Suicide Hill was. It’s near The Prison, but there is more than one around here, and we passed The Other One on Tuesday morning. They wanted to know if the hills over there were Suicide Hill. I explained it was the wrong prison and then asked if they knew what suicide meant. Really fast? guessed Fritz. I defined suicide and explained how that applied to a sledding hill. I then got to hear the boys evaluate every hill we passed for its suicide factor.

Katie didn’t quite get the vocabulary lesson, and later was talking about sledding on Shoe Size Hill. Is that narrow or medium width?

The last few days have brought warmer temps. The kids asked to go sledding yesterday, and I warned them they might not be able to do so. They persisted and were off. Jenny was the first to return, crying, covered from head to toe in mud. I got a towel on the floor before she came in, but then, like a wet dog, she shook her hands and wet mud splattered all over the walls and floor. No photos, just damage control.
Katie came home next, but Bill was ready for her.
And the boys, being boys, had to be ordered home.
12.19.07
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Progress

The baby sleeps in our room – mostly in our bed, but, more and more often, she will take a good nap in her bassinet and often she’ll begin the night with four or five hours there.

That’s great.

Except all the Christmas presents are in my room, and they need to be wrapped. I’ve tried, several times, and failed, every time, to wrap while she sleeps. No dice.

Thankfully, last night, I was able to put her down on the couch. After I cleaned the kitchen, finished baking a batch of cookies, and even tidied my desk, I really wanted to go to bed. But still, she slept. I decided that it would be foolish of me to not take advantage of this, and so, I wrapped.

With the exception of one present for Bill, one present that has not arrived yet, and a balance bike we intend to assemble on Christmas Eve, all of the Christmas presents are wrapped.

Ahem.

Rather, all of the Christmas Day presents are wrapped. We only give some presents on the 25th. We give some on the Feast of the Epiphany, and scatter a few others in between (really, is there a better way to begin the new year than with a new book?). Nevertheless, I am pleased with this accomplishment and know that Christmas Eve will not likely be a 2 AM ordeal, as has often been the case.

Now, off to bake.

12.18.07
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The Numbers – Part II

0 – Christmas cards I’ve addressed (I’m trying to be consistent).

1 – Lucid story I want to type up before Christmas (lucidity being a tall order when one can only type in dribs and drabs throughout the 24 hour “workday”).

2 – Hour of the morning that the baby has soiled her diaper four mornings in a row (praise God in all things and at all hours).

3 – Times I was outbid on eBay for a mobile for the baby’s crib before I finally got one at a reasonable price.

4 – Baked goods recipes I mixed up while the baby took a marathon 3 1/2 hour nap (only one actually got baked, but at least the dough is done).

5 – Packages Bill got to the Post Office yesterday.

6 – Packages left to be sent.

7 – Days until Christmas (I have a lot of wrapping to do)!

12.17.07
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Sweet Moments

…when the baby fusses, and Fritz or Katie rush over to try to comfort her…

…when Jenny cries that the chocolate for that day in her Advent calendar is missing and Billy immediately bites his in half and shares…

…when I wonder why Peter is taking so long to get into the pew at church and I look down to see him doing his best to imitate my genuflection…

…when Katie joyfully offers to fold the basket of baby clothes…

…when my husband asks, “What can I do to help?”

…when Jenny spends an hour with paper and markers, crumpling no less than five sheets in frustration, nearly having a meltdown, and complaining that the loud Christmas music is messing her up, only in the end to run to me with shining eyes to say, “Mommy, this is for you!”
…when the baby interrupts story time with a sneeze and the whole crowd responds with a lilting “bless you” as if she just performed the cutest trick…

…when Fritz tells me it’s too bad that the baby didn’t take a good nap because I sure would have enjoyed sledding with him…

…when Peter asks his daddy if he’ll play trains and Bill gets up right away to do it…and then an hour later I find all four males of the house in a bedroom blasting Christmas rock music and trying to build Lego trains…
…this is why I do what I do.
12.15.07
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I spy with my little eye…

…something in the mail from Netflix.

This is what my desk looked like on Thursday night. Neat piles. Easy to find everything that needs to be found. A pleasant place to sit and work.

This is what my desk looks like right now, the way it looked by yesterday afternoon, and the way it looks most of the time. Piles and piles and piles. There’s hardly room to use the tracker ball. It’s amazing that the phone happens to be on top – usually it gets buried. I would say the photo qualifies for an I Spy book, except that there is no harmony in this picture.

And the truly frustrating thing about this is that it’s not (all) me. Yes, I am responsible for the phone book and that box that contains CDs of Christmas music. But that isn’t my ruler, not my drawing of a boat. Unseen are the two dozen other pieces of priceless artwork and an Army beret that does not even belong to my husband. The problem is that when I tell the kids to clear the dining room table, they simply move everything to my nearby desk. What they don’t realize is that the vast bulk of their artwork goes right into the recycle bin.

Perhaps one thing I’ll do next year is get an art bin and train my children to store their things there. As for the beret that belongs in the dress up box? Maybe that box is too full and needs to be pared down…

12.13.07
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The Numbers

0 – Christmas cards I’ve addressed (also happens to be the same number of Christmas cards I have in my possession)

1 – Birthday party to attend before Christmas

2 – Days the local schools were closed due to the recent ice storm

3 – Times I warmed my coffee in the microwave before managing to finish it today

4 – Children snooping around boxes, bags, computer screens, lists, closets, and basements

5 – Markers/colored pencils the dog chewed up today (not my problem)

6 – Stinky diapers the baby had today (this is good, I am not complaining)

7 – Tins of Christmas cheer that need to be mailed

8 – People in this house getting less sleep than they should be

9 – Times I reminded the children that the faster they do their schoolwork, the sooner they can go out to play

10 – Wet mittens/gloves littering the floor near my front door

11 – Items left to be purchased

12 – Days until Christmas (are you ready?)