Headed for Sunshine

This coming Sunday we leave for sunny Arizona--a spring break vacation. We will see our old and dear friends (YAY!) and visit Sedona and the Grand Canyon. We return on the 11th. I can hardly wait. We will be staying in a combination of nice resorts and our friends' houses--hopefully a true vacation for ME!

Struggling In My Leadership Role

On Easter Sunday morning I fully intended to take the older children to mass. D. and I had been the night before, so he would stay home with the little ones, since Easter mass is a little longer and you need to get there almost an hour early to get a seat. This is a real frustration of mine. Although I am happy that people who infrequently attend mass are moved to come on one of the holiest days of the year, I am resentful that it makes it so difficult for those of us who attend regularly. Small children don't have the patience to sit (or stand!) for over 2 hours and there is no nursery available on holidays. Usually the day is packed with other activities as well, meaning it has to be timed just so.

J. had agreed to go early with me on Easter and then D. would bring the others close to the time mass began. We hunted eggs and ate candy and breakfast, and then J. asked me to help her install her new computer game. At that point it was over an hour until we had to leave. The next thing I knew it was about 5 minutes until we needed to leave (although it was still an hour until mass began and we only live 5 minutes away). At that point I decided not to go. I figured the kids wouldn't complain. WRONG! They were shocked and upset that we didn't go.

D. supports me in raising the children Catholic, but doesn't really support or encourage me in my role as spiritual leader of the family. He thought it was a fine idea to skip mass. Sometimes I wish the burden of the decision making and the "making it happen" regarding religion didn't all fall on me.

When I saw how bothered they were, I held a small ceremony. We read the mass readings and listened to several Christian rock songs, very uplifting music, said the Our Father (Lord's Prayer) and lit a candle. I apologized to the kids for failing them and promised it wouldn't happen again.

Bittersweet

Terry Schiavo died today. I am happy that her suffering has ended, and by this I do NOT mean the suffering of being in a persistent vegetative state, I mean the suffering of dying of thirst and starvation. Apparently those who made the decisions that she should die and by the method of eliminating her food and water supply, believing that she could not feel the pain caused by this, were unaware of the irony that she was not suffering in any way staying alive, either.

I do not believe that anyone, even the most sincere family member, has the right to end another person's life even if they believe that is what the person wanted. Perhaps Terri should not have been resuscitated when her heart stopped--that would have been a natural death, but obviously that is water under the bridge. It would have been a different decision to not pursue any further treatment she might have needed to stay alive, but nourishment, even when provided by a tube, is not really a medical treatment.

Easter Vigil

D. and I were honored to be asked to be the godparents of Ilaria, our friends' new baby daughter. Her baptism took place on Saturday night during the Easter Vigil, at which time all people who have been preparing to become Catholics are initiated into the faith through baptism and confirmation. Any of the adults participating in this ceremony who have children that need to be baptized can do so at this time. Her father was being confirmed that evening. It is a beautiful but rather lengthy ceremony (3 hours) including full immersion (hot tub on the altar) baptisms. The adults and older children were head dunked 3 times, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" and babies and tots were dipped in up to their neck. Ilaria didn't cry, nor did most of the children.

Afterwards we went to their house and celebrated with some wine and laughter.

We gave her a Miraculous Medal as a gift. The medal looks like this:




The Meaning of the Front Side of the Miraculous Medal :

Mary is standing upon a globe, crushing the head of a serpent beneath her foot. She stands upon the globe, as the Queen of Heaven and Earth. Her feet crush the serpent to proclaim Satan and all his followers are helpless before her (Gn 3:15). The year of 1830 on the Miraculous Medal is the year the Blessed Mother gave the design of the Miraculous Medal to Saint Catherine Labouré. The reference to Mary conceived without sin supports the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary—not to be confused with the virgin birth of Jesus, and referring to Mary's sinlessness, “full of grace” and “blessed among women” (Luke 1:28)—that was proclaimed 24 years later in 1854.

The Meaning of the Back Side of the Miraculous Medal:

The twelve stars can refer to the Apostles, who represent the entire Church as it surrounds Mary. They also recall the vision of Saint John, writer of the Book of Revelation (12:1), in which “a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars.” The cross can symbolize Christ and our redemption, with the bar under the cross a sign of the earth. The “M” stands for Mary, and the interleaving of her initial and the cross shows Mary’s close involvement with Jesus and our world. In this we see Mary’s part in our salvation and her role as mother of the Church. The two hearts represent the love of Jesus and Mary for us. (See also Lk 2:35).



I wear this medal. It was created by Saint Catherine Labouré. The Virgin Mary appeared to her three times in 1830 and instructed her to create a medal that looks like this. The Blessed Mother told her, "Those who wear it will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around the neck."

There is no superstition, nothing of magic, connected with the Miraculous Medal. The Miraculous Medal is not a “good-luck charm”. Rather, it is a great testimony to faith and the power of trusting prayer. Its greatest miracles are those of patience, forgiveness, repentance, and faith. God uses a Medal, not as a sacrament, but as an agent, an instrument, in bringing to pass certain marvelous results. “The weak things of this earth hath God chosen to confound the strong.”

Saint Catherine Labouré is an incorruptible. This means that although she died in 1876, her body has not decayed. She was exhumed in 1933 and her body is on display at 140 Rue du Bac, Paris. I had the privelege of seeing her and praying at her shrine when we visited Paris in 2002.

Heidi's Legacy

Found Friday afternoon, almost 2 weeks after her departure: a PILE of moldy vomit under the couch cushion. (And no, my house isn't that dirty--it amazingly had almost no odor). Ewww!

Blog Help--Leave a Comment, Please!

I have 2 computers online at home. Both are Macs. One is a laptop, the other is not. When I look at my blog on the laptop, it has a brown background, with ivory under the words, and you can clearly see the list of Blogs I Visit and the heading Archives is clear white. This is how I assumed everyone saw it. Then today I looked at it on the other computer, and saw that the background was brown, but no ivory under the words, so it is brown on brown, hard to read. I couldn't see the names of the blogs I visit (although the heading was there) unless I scrolled over them and then they appeared and disappeared again when the cursor moved away. The headings Archives and Recent Posts were white, but blurry and hard to read.

How does my blog appear to the rest of you? Please comment and let me know! I want it to appear as it does on the laptop and if it doesn't I'll fix it.

Look What I Can Do!

Look What I Can Do!, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Literally overnight, she went from being oblivious to toys/objects to reaching for them, successfully grabbing them, and putting them in her mouth! Amazing how quickly that happened (too quickly!)

The Princess at 4 Months

4months, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

She is beautiful and happy all of the time, even though she rarely naps (much to her momma's dismay!). She has 2 teeth and weighs in at 16 lbs. 8 oz. and is 26 1/2 inches long.

Birthday Food

I forgot to mention J's bday food choices: Eggo waffles for breakfast, hot lunch at school, and meat, cheese, bread and Russian dressing (bottled kind is always too sweet!) to make sandwiches from a (literally) world famous deli called Zingerman's in our area. For dessert she wanted cheesecake, which I made and decorated with strawberries in the center and mandarin oranges around the edge so it looked like a giant flower.

For her family birthday party, I needed food to serve 24. I'd picked up a 9.5lb. pork tenderloin for $17 on sale the previous week, so I marinated that and we grilled it--delicious! My mother in law brought potato salad and I made a Caesar salad. I ended up making 2 cakes, because I went to the store wanting to buy 2 boxes of Mam Papaul's Black Velvet cake mix (tastes like homemade) to make one GIANT cake and they only had one box, so I bought one chocolate and one lemon velvet. The box contains a frosting mix, which you add milk to and simmer in saucepan till thick. Then you cool it and add a LOT of butter and some cream cheese--absolutely delcicious. So I made the cakes one day and did the cooking part of the frosting, added the butter and cream cheese and frosted them the next, and decorated them the day of the party. The chocolate frosting was light brown, and I made it purple, but then D. said it would look MORE purple and less muddy if I added yellow. I tried it and now it was dirt brown! Added more purple and it was now darker purple. Adding orange made it look like darker dirt, so added MORE purple and called it quits--it was an iridescent dark brown, actually looked nice on a light brown background.

What I'm Reading

I just finished a book called "Inside the Kingdom" by Carmen bin Ladin, former sister-in-law of Osama. She was married to one of his many brothers for 9 years, is now divorced. Interesting first person story of the extreme repression Saudi women live in. Not great literature, but an easy, fast, interesting read.

I am currently still trying to finish "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. My book club read it last month and I never finished it. Very long and a difficult read, but it grows on you if you stick with it.

I am also reading "Little Earthquakes" by Jennifer Weiner, author of "Good in Bed" and "In Her Shoes." This one is about a group of women in a prenatal yoga class that become friends and the life events they help each other through. Each chapter is told by a different woman character. I liked her other books and this one is enjoyable as well. Not deep, just fun.

Something I Never Thought I'd Do

Saturday our dog Heidi went to a new home. This was actually a happy event for her and for the adults at my house. However, my 11 year old daughter J. was griefstricken by this event. She threw herself on the ground and wailed, said she hated me many times, begged, screeched, and carried on for hours. She kept saying we didn' t care about her feelings, that she loved Heidi so much, and that she'd give back all her birthday gifts if she could keep her. I never thought I'd deliberately do something that would hurt one of my children so much. It was a hard bit of parenting. I wavered, but D. reinforced our decision. It was the right thing to do. She was picked up at 7am Saturday morning. J. got up to say goodbye to her, but the hysterics were over and by that afternoon she seemed almost cheery. It helped that that was the afternoon of her family birthday party, and all the relatives were coming to celebrate with her. Since then J. hasn't said much about it, but seems happy.

No one knows how to push your buttons like your sister. My sister, who is a "neat freak" and boasts a spotless house even with 4 children living in it, and has only a gerbil for a pet, felt that I was making the wrong decision, which she made clear. I called my sister in the midst of the hysteria for moral support and she sided with my daughter! And after we hung up, she let my niece call back and commiserate with J., telling her that her whole family was sad, too, whipping her into a real frenzy. I did not appreciate that. My sister didn't care how Heidi felt, but felt that she should stay for J's sake. The facts of the matter are that J. actually didn't spend much time with Heidi, and Heidi wasn't very attached to the kids. She prefers adult attention, which we don't have to give. The time and money that the adults spent grooming, cleaning up messes, and repairing damaged doors will now be time and money we can spend on and with our kids. So my sister said, "We'll just have to agree to disagree." She is right, but she said it in a smug way and I could tell she felt better than me as she said it. I'm an easygoing person, but I could feel my temper flaring, so I bit my tongue. She claims that she would have taken Heidi if her husband would agree, but after 2 rounds of diarrhea she would have wanted to get rid of her, guaranteed. We lived with that and other problems this dog had for 7 years.

A rescue organization called Tails of Hope from Maryland took her and will be finding a new home for her. They had volunteers each drive her a leg of about 60-70 miles of the journey from Michigan to Maryland. I didn't contact them, they approached me after seeing an ad I placed in Petfinder.org.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my daughter J's 11th birthday. She is my 2nd child, my oldest daughter. Stealing an idea from Kim, I'll share her birth story here.

My due date was March 8, 1994. My first child had been a week late, so I wasn't surprised that she hadn't arrived yet. It was around 10am and I was showering while D. watched Barney on PBS. After the shower I went to the bathroom and as I sat down--POP! my water broke. I really had no doubt that that was what happened, but I sat on the couch on a towel for a few minutes just to be sure. I paged D., who was teaching a class and this led to great excitement on the part of his students. Our insurance company provided free pagers to expectant couples (this being before the day when everyone carried their own phone!) Next I called the doctor, who said to go to the hospital, and our neighbor, who had said she would watch little D. for us.

D. came home right away and we went to the hospital. I ate a pear on the way since I knew they wouldn't let me eat anything once I got there. I wasn't having contractions, so they put me in a room and had me walk the halls. I got frequent drinks from the fountains since they were only giving me ice chips. Around 1-2pm contractions got going and after that I stayed in my room. This would be my first VBAC since I'd had a c-section with my first child. I had read the book "The Silent Knife" in the meantime and had lots of ideas about preventing that from happening.

My doctor was supportive of a VBAC but wanted me to have continous internal and external monitoring and an IV. We compromised that I would have external monitoring only, 30min. on and then 30 off alternating. I confronted him with the fact that research didn't support the need for such intense monitoring and he agreed, but said it was the standard of care, and that if we were ever to go to court and he said he did things other than the standard of care because it was what the patient wanted that he would lose. I appreciated his honesty, although I did try to change to a midwife but my insurance company wouldn't let me switch mid-pregnancy. In the end, he wrote a little statement in my chart which said that he'd explained the risks of my choices to me, which he read to me in the hospital in the presence of the nurse. CYA--can't say I blame him in our litigious society.

The nurse kept offering that I could change my mind any time and have an epidural, until D. told her we knew that and asked her to quit bringing it up. My doctor had told me that not having an epidural would increase my chances of a successful VBAC. I wanted a natural childbirth anyway. The nurse brought me a rocking chair so I could rock during my time on the monitor and I liked it so well I rocked most of the time. I was doing OK until I hit about 7cm. I had gone from 5 to 7 in about 30 minutes so after another 30 they checked again and I was still 7, which was discouraging. Luckily it was my nurse's dinner break about this time so another nurse came in to be with me and she was VERY encouraging, a real cheerleader, sat right down with me and talked me through some of it. Soon they had me get on the bed which had a bar above my head which I hung on to through some of the contractions.

My doctor confirmed that it was time to push, but told me he'd be waiting in the lounge because women often push for several hours, especially with first babies, which is what I was considered since it was my first vaginal delivery, and he found pushing to be boring. So irritating. I pushed through several contractions, and then the nurse began getting the cart ready and herself dressed in mask and gloves. I asked what she was doing and she told me that the baby was almost here, she could see the head, and she called the doctor, who was very surprised to be called back so soon. He gave me a large episiotomy as she was crowning because he said I was tearing inside, which I never saw/felt any evidence of but didn't really care at that moment. I was sitting up holding on to the bar as she slid out and I saw that she was a girl. I was elated! I really wanted a daughter. She was 9lbs. 12 oz. and arrived at 9:16pm.

I held her and nursed her for a while and then she was taken to the nursery for a bath and "observation" which was supposed to take about an hour. They moved me to another room and brought me some dinner--I was starving. D. went up to the nursery to check on J. and found her naked and screaming in a warmer, which dismayed him. He wanted to stay with me until they brought her back but they told him it would be a while, and he needed to get back home and relieve the neighbor's son who was now at our house with a sleeping big brother D. They didn't bring her back to me until 1am! Even then I had to call and bug them and they basically told me they were busy so it would be a while longer.

She is sweet and sensitive, nurturing, smart, quiet, creative, a talented writer--I'm priveleged to be her mom.

Brag

My oldest son, D., who is 12 and in 7th grade, was invited to be in a program called the Midwest Academic Talent Search (MATS) run by Northwestern University based on his standardized test scores. Part of what being in this program means is that he had an opportunity to take the ACT now. He took it a few weeks ago and we got his scores today. He got a composite score of 26 with a percentile rank of 86th percentile as compared with all the highschool seniors who took the test! His section percentiles were: 99% in Reading, 84% in English, 65% in math and 58% in Science. The composite is an average of his scores in each section.

Personally, I am very impressed with how well he did, especially since I was a good student and I got a 28 composite in highschool!

I know you are wondering, as we did when he was first offered the "opportunity" to take the test: what is the point? He will receive offers to attend special programs and even be approached early by colleges if he peformed well.

Nearest Book

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!


"They will spread a scarlet cloth over that, and finally a covering of goatskin leather on top of the scarlet cloth. Then they shall insert the carrying poles into the table. Next they must cover with a blue cloth the lampstand, the lamps, snuffers, trays, and the resevoir of olive oil."

It's from the bible: Numbers 4: 8-9.

Don't be impressed, I don't usually have the bible so close at hand, but I'm trying to read daily scripture for Lent.

Today

I. is my most defiant child. She hate the taste of the chewable antibiotics and has been complaining and refusing to take them. My MIL brought Froot Loops and cinnamon rolls for breakfast and she was told that she couldn't have any until she took the medicine. Later my MIL found the pills in the bathroom garbage. I guess I'll have to run the house like a mental institution, and stand and watch the inmates take their medication. LOL I will call to get the liquid form on Monday, but she hates all medicine and I don't anticipate that being any more acceptable.

I. and I had to attend a church retreat today for First Communion preparation. We had to bring a loaf of homebaked bread, to reinforce the theme of breaking bread together. She and I made Irish Soda bread this morning, since we didn't have time yesterday to make a yeast bread. The retreat was from 10am-2pm, about an hour too long, IMO. Sadly, my MIL had to leave at 3pm. How many days till D. returns?

The Icing on Cake

I awoke an hour earlier than usual , after a very sleepless night with A., to get up with the older kids since D. usually does that but he is out of town. I went to make coffee, which he usually does and I for some reason HATE to do, only to find that we were OUT of coffee--the icing on the cake. I found a few crumbles and mixed them with some decaf and it was enough for one cup and enough to prevent a caffeine headache.

I called the doctor first thing in the morning to get an appointment for I. and I made one for T. as well, since she has had the same nose issues for a week, without the fever, and her entire face is chapped, giving her a Fred Flinstone beard and mustache look. First I had to talk to the nurse to even get an appointment, which irked me since I do NOT take my kids in at the first sign of a sniffle. Then the only appointment was at 9:15am. I called the dealership and they said I could come at 11am and I called my babysitter, who was going to watch K. while I had lunch with a friend to see if she could have him earlier so he wouldn't have to ride around to all of these places. She picked him up at 9am. I took the girls to the doctor, who agreed that I. has a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics. He thinks T. is getting one and gave me a prescription with the instructions to wait a few days before filling it to see if she improves. I had him recheck A's ears and he said that they are still infected and painful and that she may be developing a sinus infection as well. He gave me an antibiotic prescription for her with the same instructions. They only charged me for 2 office visits--Yeah! the 2nd best thing that happened this week. I dropped T. at preschool, and off I. and I went to the dealership. (In the meantime the car was running normally again and the engine light had turned off!) My sister couldn't pick us up now because her kids had a half day of school so she had to get them at noon. We didn't have anything to entertain us so I stopped and bought a deck of cards. They had a nice children's playroom, with a Playstation (something we don't have at home and NEVER will!) so we played cards and video games. The repair took less than an hour and they also fixed the passenger side window which wouldn't roll down.

We blasted home and my friend came over so we could ride together to a rather late lunch. There was nowhere to turn around with her car and the sitter's in the the parking area so I attempted to back down the driveway, and got stuck in the snow. I just wanted so badly to do something fun and had been looking forward to this all week. It took the 2 of them and sacrificing my bathmat for traction to get me out. We had a lovely lunch, and I got home around 4:45pm. I was talking with D. who had called when I suddenly realized that I had to pick up young D. from a middle school dance! Off I went AGAIN. I stopped on the way home at the coffee shop to get a bag of coffee, and will be forever grateful to the nice young man who ran out to the car after I left the coffee I'd just purchased on the counter. My MIL pulled in the driveway just ahead of me.
We ordered pizza and she had brought DVDs. The kids enjoyed "Yours, Mine and Ours" with Lucille Ball and we watched "Shall We Dance?" with Richard Gere, who gets ever sexier with age. It was a GREAT movie, really romantic and affirming of marriage--I highly recommend it.

The High Point of My Week

occurred on Thursday morning, when I was able to snap the lens back into my sunglasses without unscrewing the frame. I was on the way to my sister's house to visit, and it was a bright snowy day, and a long drive. I knew that the lens had fallen out of them but I hadn't had a chance to get out the mini screwdriver and play with them, and last tiyme I couldn't get it in without unscrewing the frame, and even with the screwdriver I didn't have the fine motor coordination necessary to hold the lens in place while screwing in the screw, so D. ended up doing it for me. I was so thrilled when it snapped back in on it's own! Just a symptom of the type of week I had when that was the best thing that happened.

I had a nice visit with my sister and her kids, and headed home. While on the freeway, the van suddenly slowed and would no longer go over 60mph, even with the pedal to the floor. This was accompanied by the engine light on the dashboard lighting up. This happened once before, but after turning it off and restarting it the problem disappeared. I got off at the next exit with the intent of trying this, turned left and found myself not on the service drive, but on a loop which was the onramp to the freeway going back in the direction I'd come from! (with no sign saying this). It was 9 miles until the next exit, where I tried turning off the engine and restarting it, and it the problem remained, more sluggish if anything. I drove home slowly. I had received a recall letter about a part needing to be replaced that could cause the engine to be underpowered and the engine light to go on. We hadn't taken it in yet since there were no nearby dealers that service Dodge Sprinters because they have Mercedes engines. I then called all the nearby dealers to see if any of them had begun servicing Sprinters in the meantime, but none had. Ironically, the nearest dealer that did was right near my sister's house, about a 45 minute drive away, where I had just come from! I was able to make a 10am appointment for the next day and was told it would take 60-90 minutes to repair. My sister agreed to pick me up so I wouldn't have to hang around the dealership.

That evening the girls had a piano lesson about 1/4 mile away and D. had an indoor soccer game about a 20 minute drive away. Usually his dad takes him, but he was now out of town. D. thought I should drive the girls to piano, take him to soccer, turn around and come back and get the girls, and then go right back and pick him up. I felt that 2 hours of car riding was not in the best interests of his younger siblings, not to mention that the van was acting up, so called around to get him a ride with a teammate. When I picked up the girls from piano, the piano teacher mentioned that I. was not feeling well. She hasn't been herself since having the flu 2 weeks ago, and has had a severe stuffy nose with lots of drainage. When she hugged me goodnight, she felt feverish. I attempted to take her temperature, but since she couldn't breathe through her nose at all and could not close her mouth, I couldn't get an accurate reading.

Wednesday Dawns

It is the morning of a La Leche League meeting, and I am a Leader, and I am supposed to lead this meeting, but forgot that so have not planned anything. I have to take T. to preschool at 9am and get the house picked up a little before the cleaning person arrives at 9am. I call my coleader and arrange to go to her house and brainstorm meeting ideas after I drop off T. Meanwhile, D. wants to have lunch with me so I have arranged for my babysitter to pick K. up from my coleaders home at 9:30 (meeting is at 10am and I am meeting D. at noon). However, K. is sleeping late and I am not as ready as I should be, so it is apparent that this plan won't work. Then I remember that N., who cleans, is happy to have me leave a sleeping K. for a few minutes while she is there. So I call my coleader and cancel going to her house, and plan to just run T. to school, come back and get K. ready and have the sitter pick him up here. I quickly pack T. a lunch since she will stay for lunch at preschool today because the sitter is taking K. with her to a class she teaches for toddlers and won't be able to pick up T. when the preschool part of the day is over.

When N. arrives she can't get up the driveway so she walks up the long driveway in the deep snow, leaving her car near but not in the road. She is wearing an open toed tennis shoe because she had foot surgery last week. She is uncomfortable leaving her car in that spot and so cancels cleaning and departs. Now T. is ready to leave for preschool and so am I, but K. is asleep. I hurriedly get him up and fed, and the sitter picks him up, and we FINALLY leave for preschool at 9:45. I arrive at the LLL meeting at 9:59, but luckily my coleader and I had hashed some discussion ideas out on the phone so I feel somewhat prepared. We normally have 8-12 people at a meeting, but there were about 15 there when I arrived and over the next 30 minutes they just kept on walking in, giving us a total of close to 30! Absolutely astonishing! I left after the formal part of the meeting was over, and rushed into town to meet D. for a quick lunch, as he only had about 45 minutes.

The church had arranged for Mark Price to portray St. Joseph (the church's patron saint) for the kids at religious education, but Tuesday's RE classes had been cancelled due to the weather, and we were told that we could bring our kids to the performance he was doing for the Wed. classes. I loaded up my kids, waking K. from his nap, picked up I. from school and the 2 daughters of a friend who just had her 6th child a week ago, and went to the church. K. is a very sweet child, but only 20 months old and my most rambunctious toddler to date. He proceeded to get very loud, shouting all the words he knows, "Book! Door! Coat! Byebye!..." and all of our names, quickly escalating to shrieks of glee. The church was silent except for the voices of the performer and my dear child. After a few minutes it was obvious there was no hope of him quieting down so I tried to remove him, but I was carrying A. and he lifted his feet so I was now dragging him by one arm down the aisle. My older kids, mortified with embarrassment, were pretending they didn't know me. At this point our priest rushed up and grabbed A. so I could pick up K. and we took them downstairs to the nursery. K. played happily with toys until someone came to tell me it was almost over. We cleaned up the toys and went back into the church where a question and answer session was going on. Unfortunately the questions went on for quite a while, and K. resumed his earlier behavior immediately, so I handed A. to J. and removed him AGAIN. The kids loved the performance, so it was worth the effort.

Things I forgot to mention

On the way out of the doctor's office on Monday, I fell and skinned both knees, without damaging my pants. They hurt a surprising amount and for some reason, my children felt the need to run their hands over my knees every time they walked by that afternoon, despite repeatedly being told, "Please don't touch my knees!" "Sorry Mom!" Repeat 20 times and you have the rest of my day.

Tuesday I got stuck in the driveway when I returned from retrieving Spot, so I left the van there, blocking the driveway. We share the driveway with our tenants, who live in small guest house behind our house, but I thought they were gone. Later, as I was bathing A. (who hadn't had a bath in longer than I care to admit), they came down the driveway and were unable to get around me. J. came running in to tell me, but I had to finish the bath and dress the baby. Then I handed her to D. and went outside, where one of the tenants was shoveling with this large scoop shovel, and he had moved enough snow that I could now move my van. Luckily, they were not in a hurry to go anywhere.

My sweet MIL sent me an email on Monday offering to spend the night on Friday since D. would be out of town for a few days, which I was unaware of since he hadn't informed me of his upcoming business trip. When confronted with the fact that I would prefer to be the first to know and that I would appreciate more than 3 days advance notice, he got mad at me for giving him a hard time. He said, "You don't have to take it out on me because you're in a bad mood." I said, "I'm not in a bad mood." He said, "Well, I am." I love him dearly, but accepting criticism is not his strongest area.

This Week...Where Do I Begin?

Saturday

A. had a bad cold accompanied by a fever, and had slept terribly for several nights in a row. D. got up with her in the morning and let me sleep for another hour or so, which helped tremendously.

I took J. to Piano Student Achievement Day, where they are tested in 4 areas: Performance, Auditory Awareness, Theory and Sightreading. (She got her results today and she scored 93.5 out of 100! ) When we got home, we decided to go downtown as a family and have dinner and visit a used bookstore. A new Mexican restaurant opened recently, Senor Lopez' Taqueria, and it is very good authentic Mexican cuisine (something there was a dearth of in Ann Arbor prior to this restaurant, although almost every other ethnicity, including Ethiopian, is represented) so we went there. There were 4 tables open when we arrived, each seated 4, and 2 were next to one another. Unfortunately the waitperson who seated the couple in front of us was oblivious to the fact that a large group was behind them, because she gave them one of the 2 adjacent empty tables. When she asked us how many, and we said 8, she looked confused and walked away. This was repeated 2 more times with 2 other waitpeople. Finally one came back and said we'd have to wait until a table opened up and they would push 2 together. We ogled the other patrons and cheered every time a table emptied until we were seated. The service was unfortunately very slow, and so we had eaten 4 baskets of chips and spilled 2 sodas (spilled by older and younger D., respectively, ages 42 and 12--not the little kids) by the time the food came. We scarfed it down, but now it was dark and colder, so we scratched the bookstore idea and stopped at a coffee shop with live music to listen for a little while. A. was getting fussy and had been not nursing well all day, latching on and pulling off repeatedly and often refusing the right side, so I was glad to get home.

Sunday

Another rough night with A., but again D. let me sleep in.

After church, we decided to go on another family outing, and went geocaching. We were successfull, even in the snow, and discovered a neat small area of public forest to roam in. We had to hurry home because D. had a soccer game.

That evening our church was having the first of 3 peformances by a man named Mark Price, whose ministry is traveling and bringing several biblical characters to life. He was doing Simon Peter that night at 7pm and I wanted to go. I had to take everyone with me because big D. had taken young D. to his soccer game, but the church was offering free childcare so I thought it would be OK. I didn't have dinner ready quickly enough and by the time everyone ate and donned their winter garb, got buckled into their seats and we arrived and disembarked, it was 7:15pm. I peeked in the door and it was a full house, and the performance was underway. It would have been horribly disruptive to troop in and climb over people to sit down, so we went home.

Sunday night A. coughed continuosly, keeping both of us awake most of the night.



Monday

No sleeping in on a Monday morning.

I made a dr. appt. for A. She had ear infections in both ears, which I'd suspected due to the fussy nursing. Useful information, but since they won't treat them unless they are severe, didn't really change anything. The nurse practicioner told me that she is too young for cough medication, but that she could take Benadryl before bed to dry her up and help her cough less.

The second night of the Mark Price ministry featured him acting out Judas. I went alone this time, got there early and got a seat well before it began. It was very moving. The performance was supposed to be followed by Reconciliation (formerly known as Confession). Our priest and 3 visiting priests would be stationed in different spots around the church and we would take turns confessing to them. However, there was a major snowstorm going on, and after the performance our priest announced that in view of the weather, and the large number of people and small number of priests, he felt it would be most prudent to perform a Communal Reconciliation, where he a said a prayer and then absolved all of us of our sins at once. A freebie! I was elated: absolution without face to face confession.

I went home, directly to bed, dosing my sweet baby with both Tylenol and Benadryl, and we both slept like babies that night.

Tuesday

Snow day!!

Halfway through the day the phone rang, and it was our vet. "Are you missing something?" they asked. Spot had run away again, was apparently picked up by a Good Samaritan and taken to the sherriff station, where they were unable to identify him using his license (?1?)

The Good Samaritan then took him to the nearby vet, who happened to be our vet. They recognized him as a client, but had to call and find out who the owner was from the license.

When I got there, I told them I needed an appointment for Heidi for her rabies shot and for Spot because he's been scratching his ears and we thought he had ear mites. She looked in his ears, said he had an ear infection, and charged me $35 for a tube of cream and an office visit.

In the afternoon we played board games and ate popcorn while K. napped. Later we had a nice family dinner with strawberry shortcake for dessert.

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