Sometimes, life just stinks...

It's been a tough couple days here in the life of the Catholic Librarian. Well, for me, it's simply been vicarious emotional worry and anxiety, but for my sister's family it's been much, much worse. On Monday night, an accident caused a fire to start on the outside of their house, and it quickly wrecked structural devastation. Most importantly, everybody is ok, including their cats. Unfortunately, their house is not. It's going to have to be gutted, which is going to take a considerable amount of time and money. Thank goodness, they have good homeowners insurance, and that will cover everything. But in the mean time, they have few salvageable possessions. They'll be displaced from their home for at least 6 months, and they have 2 small boys. It's been an emotional couple of days.

Thankfully, once word got out, they've been the recipients of much generosity and love. Everyone has been busy worker bees assemblying donations of toys, clothes, toiletries, and other necessities. My parents are headed there this weekend (my sister and her family live about a 5 hour drive from us) so that will help. I'm hoping to go visit them in their temporary house next month sometime. We'll get them through this one day at a time.

So, that's been on my mind, which accounts for the lack of blog posts and Twitter/Facebook updates for the past day. I'm hanging in there.

Also on Monday, I had to take Henry for his 4 year well child checkup. Mike was teaching, so I had to man the job myself, and I knew it was going to involve shots. Henry is very good about receiving shots; on the other hand, I am not. I just hate for my baby to have to experience pain.

When Henry asked me if it would hurt, I ws honest with him and told him yes, but that it would just be for a second; and in return, he wouldn't get sick with these terrible diseases that shots help us not to get. When the moment came, I hugged him in my arms while the nurse prepared his arm:

"Mommy, what's she doing? Is it going to hur...OW! OW, MOMMY!" *accusing little index finger pointed right at the nurse* "Mommy, that lady HURT-TED ME!!"

Regardless of how irrational it is, in that moment, you just want to slap the nurse, grab your baby, and race from the room. Sometimes, life is just like that.

Adventures in Belly Dancing, Advanced Edition

This past Friday, I started my new belly dance class. It's the advanced level class, followed by a half hour choreography segment for the performance group. I am so super excited and happy about all of this, I can't even tell you. It's like my belly dancing dream. I dream small :)

So, I arrived Friday evening feeling decidedly nervous. My previous class meets right before this new one, and I was feeling a bit self-conscious about suddenly appearing for the new class, despite the fact that Claire personally invited me. Another girl from my class, Karen, had also been invited to move up, so I held out for her arrival, figuring we could stick together.

I get there early and sit amongst the other advanced class members. They all smile politely at me, but I could tell they were wondering what I was doing. I just assembled myself and sat still as a flag pole, beseeching Karen to arrive.

Karen didn't arrive. Now I'm sweating. You know, the usual course of things. My previous class finishes, and as they file out, they all look at me oddly too. I smile weakly and take my place on the floor for warmup. Obviously, Claire hasn't said anything to anyone else about Karen and I switching classes.

I felt self-conscious (and sweaty) for the whole hour, but I held my own. This class is definitely more difficult than my last one, and it challenged me. But I loved it. I kept up with the belly drills, and not all of my sweat was from anxiety. This was a good workout.

Finally, at the end of the class period, but before performance group practice, as we were all taking a quick break, Claire remembered my plight.

"Oh! This is Tiffany, our new performance group member!"

I received lots of happy acknowledgements and smiles. I felt relieved. Then I tried to get up from my perch along the side of the room and realized that I had managed to get my hip scarf coins stuck in the radiator. Classy.

But at any rate, Claire continued on undaunted:

"Where are my sword dancers?"

Well, that's definitely not me, WHEW. Claire explained that the group was divided into two camps for the new choreography, one wielding swords the other using a cool veil/fan combo mechanism. I'm a happy new member of the veil/fan group.

We practiced a few moves and put them together into a fledgling choreography. It's super cute and I'm SO EXCITED. Have I mentioned that yet?

So, I finished up in one piece, and the group let me know that they often meet for a drink afterward and I'm welcome to join them anytime. Yea.

This weekend, I practiced with my fan (not as easy as it looks) and emailed Karen to secure her attendance this coming Friday :) She's coming, thank God. I can't wait.

Henry gem of the week...

I'm going to warn all readers now - this post will involve the word 'poo.' Parents will be totally unfazed by this, but for those of who have not navigated the world of potty training, I wanted to provide fair warning :)

So, poo. Why is it that toddlers/pre-schoolers (particularly boys, it seems) detest performing this necessary bodily function? Is it really so difficult? All of us wish we didn't have to do it, but the fact is, we do. As Hank would say "That's how God made us, Mommy."

From the time we started potty training Henry, he was resistant. At first, he was an equal opportunity resistor and also resisted going pee on the potty. He got over that fairly easily, though in the process he developed The Bladder of Steel. The child can go ALL DAY on a single pee. It's downright unprecedented. But he's gotten better with that. He doesn't mind peeing on the potty, especially now that he knows how to do it standing up. Standing up to pee is apparently *way cool.*

Poo is a completely different story. To this day, Henry will deny that he has to poo even as the room begins to stink and his stomach cramp. He came casually waltzing into the living room one day, saying "I don't have to poo," as he LIMPED across the room. The child was *limping* and yet still would not poo.

Every trip to the potty in which the 'p' word is mentioned causes a chain reaction involving vehement protestations, angry frowns, and inevitably, one bursting into tears:

"Henry, do you have to poo?"

"NO!" *pause* "Mommy, could I have a fresh pair of underwear?"

"Henry, that means you have to poo."

"NO! I DON'T HAVE TO POO!! That's NOT NICE to say that!!"

"Henry, honey, just *poo*! Really, you'll feel so much better. Mommy will read you a book while you go."

"NO! I DON'T HAVE TO POO!!"

And so it goes.

Yesterday afternoon, Henry sequestered himself underneath the dining room table, claiming that he was on a space ship and was about to take off. The "takeoff fumes" caught my attention, so I got suspicious, and went to investigate:

"Henry, do you have to poo?"

*pause*

"Mommy, there's no bathroom on my space ship."

Well. Isn't that convenient?

Other news...

I got so absorbed in my birthing post that I forgot about a bunch of other things. The first of which is that my little Honda Civic is being repaired as I type, and I'm quite happy about it. And the damage is less than $300, so we'll label that a victory and call it a day. I'm so reliant on my car, I'm be thrilled to get little Civic back running smoothly and happily.

And in fact, I need it tonight because I have bellydance class tonight. And tonight, for the first time, I was invited to join the next session as a member of the advanced class and performance group, and I couldn't be more pleased about this. I've had a smile plastered on my face for weeks. I'm super duper happy.

The bad news is that yesterday we received Henry's school pictures. *sighs* Remember, the shirt debacle from two mornings ago? Well, Henry exacted his revenge, if unwittingly.

We'll go back in time to sum up this experience, 2 years. That was Henry's first year at the daycare, and his pictures turned out *smashing*. I mean, I know he's my kid and all, but he's super, SUPER cute and photogenic. And his picture was awesome. We chose the fall/harvest background, and 2-year old Henry is sitting cherubically among a pumpkin and bushel of fall leaves, clutching an apple in one hand. His cheeks are pink, his blue eyes (I must have a recessive gene; I can't explain this any other way) are sparkling, and his smile is bright. That's still my favorite picture of him of all time, and I still have it displayed in our dining room.

The next year, I signed up for all kinds of pictures based on the promise of the previous year. The pictures were...ok. Not bad. Not great, but certainly not bad. I didn't like that I had put an adorable bear sweater on Henry and they had him pose with his legs cruched up in front of him, so you couldn't see it. His smile looked a bit forced, but it wasn't terrible. His cheeks were again real rosy, and I love the fall background.

So, this year, it's his last year at our wonderful daycare/preschool. I ordered a bunch of pictures (it's the same photography company) and hoped for a result like the first year. And, this year...the pictures are just bad. And I could live with them being bad if I hadn't spent $80 on them. But I don't want to spend $80 on pictures in which Henry looks like he's either (a) constipated, or (b) in terrific pain and trying to hide it bravely. They're just not good. And I find this inexcusable (even in the school pictures trade, where bad pictures are the cherished norm) in the age of digital photography. You snap the picture, see immediately that the kid's face looks pinched and painful, and thus you rearrange him and snap another. It's so simple, and I really think this is what should happen.

Sigh. So, I'm not happy about this whole thing. But you win some, you lose some, right?

It's my baby's birthday...

*sniffle* My precious guy is 4 years old today. I remember vividly that day 4 years ago when he came into this world...

Actually, it all began November 5, 2005, the day before Henry was born. I awoke and did notice one physical sign that labor may be imminent, and I will spare you the details of what that sign was. But I wasn't due for another week, and you know what they say about first babies - they're usually late. As with most labor signs, it could mean that I would go into labor either within the hour, or 2 weeks from then. I didn't think too much of it. Mostly though, that was because my nesting brain was set on so many other things. Knowing what you know about me, what would you think I did the day before I gave birth to my son? That's right; a million different things, all of which kept me perpetually in motion with a tremendous burst of annoying high-paced energy.

First, I rearranged our pots and pans. A pressing problem that just could not wait, right? I was actually down on my hands and knees, belly and all, stacking and re-stacking things in the cupboards. Once that was complete, I figured with all of my pots arranged, I might as well put them to good use and make homemade sauce (which I haven't done again since that day, fyi). Mike comes into the kitchen to find me frantically chopping bell peppers and onion, tomato puree sizzing on the stove top. He managed to get me to turn off the sauce for a bit so that we could take a walk together. At that time, we still lived in an apartment in the city, and we took a beautiful walk, even taking some pictures in front of trees in their full fall foliage glory. That sucked down about an hour, and still, I was not drained of energy.

We got back and I finished the sauce, and our dinner. I made the announcement that I wanted to go to the vigil Mass that evening (Saturday) just in case I didn't feel up to Mass in the morning. A fortuitous choice. Off to Mass I trekked, where I also went to Confession before the service started. At the conclusion of Mass, Fr. Jim announced that the Sacrament of the Sick would be available, so I went to that as well. That's 3 sacraments in the couse of an hour and a half, people. Now that's impressive. I was loaded up.

After I got back home, I did more general house and nursery straightening and re-straightening. I folded teeny tiny sleepers and itty bitty socks. Finally, I was spent. My belly and I went to bed.

I was sleeping (uncomfortably, of course) at 2 am and awoke with cramps. I shifted position (not an easy feat for a woman who is 9 months pregnant) in a vain attempt to get more comfortable. I did that for at least 15 minutes, in denial that I had to actually get out of bed. Finally, and very crankily I might add, I got out of bed without waking Mike and went into the living room.

I remember wondering why this all couldn't have started at, oh I don't know, 9 am instead of 2. After I had a full night of sleep. And I also remember thinking, "well, with as uncomfortable as sleeping has been this whole pregnancy, it's not like getting up with a newborn could be any worse." SNORT. Ok parents, just admit it, you're dying laughing right now. Because, oooohhhh yes sir, the sleep deprivation that accompanies having a newborn is so much infinitely more difficult for so many reasons.

But at any rate, on that day I was blissfully living in my ignorance of such things, and I had a whole different problem going on. I timed my contractions, and read a bit of the Diary of St. Faustina. *halo* I paced around, inspecting my belly for clues. Around 3:30 am, Mike discovered that I was missing and came out in search of me. When my contractions got to 5 minutes apart, I called my obstetrician's 24 hour nurses line and Vicki advised me to proceed to the hospital. So at 4:30 am on November 6, 2005, we did, nervous excitement permeating our car windows.

Once I got to the hospital, I saw my obstetrican, whom I adore, which was great. But then they shuttled me to a birthing room and that's when I got unhappy. I was hooked up to all manner of devices and couldn't walk more than a foot from the bed. Plus, they had to "check me in" and asked me a slew of annoying questions, all while I was writhing in discomfort.

Hours passed. Any number of hospital employees managed to tee me off, though granted, I wasn't exactly myself. I actually banned the general on-call obstetrician in the labor/delivery wing from my room because I just didn't like his attitude. The CatholicLibrarian Unhappy Mind Ray was pointed in his direction in full force. I liked my nurse and agreed that the midwife could come near me, so I stuck with them. I didn't see my own doctor again, of course, until I was ready to deliver. And by that point, I had pretty much agreed to marry the anesthesiologist, meaning that your CatholicLibrarian was in some serious, serious pain.

In the final hours, I remember thinking to myself "there's no getting out of this now, is there? Boy, this sucks." Ah, well :) I remember writhing and clutching the hospital bed armrest. In between contractions, my doctor (quite young, and had an 18 month old at home and one on the way) was chatting with the nurse. My doctor mentioned that my nurse had also been her nurse when she delivered her son, and I remember thinking "Gee, that seems a bit awkward," but they didn't seem to think so. I like them both quite a bit, but they were starting to put me in a near occasion of saying a swear word by taking their gloves off between my contractions. At this point, there's like about 10 seconds between gut splitting contractions and I want THIS BABY OUT NOW so for the love of God, KEEP YOUR GLOVES ON!!!

And so the big moment finally arrived. Mike and I had chosen not to find out our baby's gender, so we were all excited about the big reveal. Well, I imagine Mike was excited; my sole mental focus was beseeching God to please let this all be over, and I didn't want to divert any energy away from that. I heard my doctor say "It's a Henry!!" And so our little guy came into the world.

I opened my eyes (all that beseeching requires eyes squeezed closed for maximum effectiveness) and I saw Henry for the first time. It was a poignant moment, seeing how he looked like us. I remember that the look on his face said "What on earth just happened here?" The doctor placed him on my belly and he gave one of those adorable "wah wah" newborn cries. Mike cut his umbillical cord and we were in business.

One final anecdote. That night, after all of the family had left, and I was left in my hospital room, blissful with my cable tv and no-longer-pregnant body (instant relief from sciatica and any number of other discomforts) I recall rolling on my belly and nearly dissolving from the pleasure of that position, denied me since about month 4. I fell into a deep sleep, denied me since about, oh I don't know, fertilization? and awoke at 3 am to nurse Hank. When he was done, I happily buzzed the nurses' station and told them that the baby was all set. A nurse came and whisked him away, and I fell back to sleep. At 6 am, he appeared again, swaddled in his little bassinette, to nurse. I happily awoke to accommodate him. And do you know what I thought? I thought that in between those times, THE BABY WAS SLEEPING. Go ahead, fall over laughing. That was the final night of my blissful ignorance.

And here we are, 4 years later. *sob* My baby!! How far we've all come.

*Sighs*...at least Advent is coming...

I guess this is just one of those weeks. Happily, I'm emotionally feeling a ton better following our downer of a day on Sunday. But things continue to be challenging and we're just doing our best with them.

Last night I came home to a tantruming Henry. I'm not certain what is going on with him, but he's definitely having a bad week. It wasn't a pleasant evening, but we got through it. This morning, I really, really wanted things to go better. Mike brought Henry with him to walk down to the newspaper machine at the end of our street, which went over big. Both had an excellent time. Everything was going great, until...7:45 am. Henry was behaving angelically, and was watching Tom & Jerry in the living room while sipping his orange juice; Mike was blissfully reading the paper. I was in the upstairs bathroom brushing my teeth. Suddenly - I had a revelation. Today is picture day.

*GROAN*

This means that we need to change Henry out of the casual pants and Transformers shirt that he chose, and stuff his (I'm undoubtedly certain) unhappy little body into formal slacks and a button down shirt. I'm filled with a sense of foreboding - this is not going to go well.

Sure enough, the next 20 minutes are filled with:

"I DON'T WANT TO WEAR THIS SHIRT!! I DON'T LIKE THIS SHIRT, MOMMY!!!!!"

Despite much cajoling, he cried all the way to the car, where, once again, the fun escalated as he refused to get in his car seat. I handled things much better this time (one would think that I'd be used to the foibles of motherhood, since my child is about to turn 4. One would think. It's a continual learning process :) and managed to get Henry strapped in after only 3 minutes of torturesome sobbing. We chatted about outdoor holiday decorations on the way to school, which perked him up some, but the instant we arrived and I unstrapped him from his seat, the sourpuss face was back in full force. I agreed that we could ride the elevator, in an effort to appease, but he was still pretty prickly when we arrived at his classroom.

I kissed him up, hating all the while that I have to work the evening reference shift tonight and won't see him before he goes to bed. His teacher said that that if he tugged on the shirt too much, she would put him in one of the extra casual shirts we keep in his locker until the picture, since they wouldn't be taken until noon. That made me feel better.

So then, I left for work. *sighs* My car is doing something "funny." That's never a good word to combine with talk of one's vehicle. Every time I slow or stop, the car stutters forward when I step on the gas again. It was doing it a bit yesterday, but this morning it was worse. I'm going to have to take it in for service, and I loathe doing that. I always feel like taking your car in is like writing a blank check to the garage, because no matter what needs to be done, spending merely a few hundred dollars is pretty much a pipe dream. But it's bad, so I have no choice. And my in-laws are coming to visit this weekend for Henry's birthday, and if I have no car, this will be a problem. Mike also has a car, but it's a standard transmission, and I don't know how to drive it. This isn't good.

Somehow, my spirits are still high, despite the week's best efforts to get me down. I just got back from daily Mass, which is always a good thing. As well, I seized the opportunity to pick up a few Advent supplies that I'm very excited about.

I picked up a felt Advent wreath for Henry that is adorable. We have a traditional one with candles, but this one will be his very own. Henry has also expressed an interest in my scapular, and I have a tiny wooden one that I love. It's gotten very worn, so I bought 2 more, one for each of us. So, this all has brightened me a bit.

I'm working until 7 tonight, and then I have to go home and straighten up the house for my in-laws' arrival tomorrow afternoon. Mike and Henry are baking cupcakes tonight to bring in for his birthday. Please God, don't let there be batter on the ceiling when I get home...

Feeling a bit better...

Thankfully, what could have been a very tough week has been looking up. After I got home last night, I called my dentist to re-reschedule my wisdom tooth extraction. This afternoon, with Henry in tow, just wasn't going to work for me. I'm sure Henry would have been fine, but after having had a tooth pulled, I would then have to go home and care for him for the rest of the evening (Mike teaches Tuesday nights) and then get up and come in to work Wednesday for my long day complete with an evening reference shift. I got tired just thinking about all of that.

On top of that, I've also been focusing on feeling better following my experience with Henry at Mass on Sunday. Everything in life is a journey, and it's going to have bumps along the way. I'm still going to be super paranoid when I go back to my parish, but what can I do? I did my best; I'm going to have to accept that I couldn't have done anything more. And I can worry about it next week - this Sunday I'll go to the Latin Mass with my mother-in-law, and most likely, Henry will stay home to play with daddy and grandpa. It's so rare that I get to attend Mass childless (which is fine with me; I know I'm doing the right thing by bringing Henry regularly) that it's a special treat to be able to hear everything and concentrate on the readings and the liturgy.

So, in all the fray, I forgot to take pictures of my recent crochet projects; will do so shortly :) I'm working on a pair of mittens for myself now, and they're coming out nicely. They're a bit big, but I purposely made them longer so that they would really keep my hands toasty. But what is it with things I make - they tend to have gigantism. Even Henry is really, really big for his age :) I obviously have special creation abilities...

Now that Henry is about to be 4, the question of "So, are you having another one?!" is really going into overdrive. I'm always uncomfortable with that question, because it seems so personal. Also, I don't like the assumptions that people make (generally) when they ask it; which are that it's very cut and dry as to whether you are or are not, and if you are not, you must be doing something active to put the kibosh on it, which in our case isn't true. But I really don't want to get into discussing such a personal thing with people :) So, I find it very awkward. I usually sputter something like "Well...maybe :) You never know!" which seems to confuse people, but alas.

Someone at work said to me the other day: "Oh, you're Catholic? You're one of *them.*" She was teasing, but there's definitely an undertone there - yes, I'm Catholic, and we're a little different; I see that as a good thing :)

All Saints Day Fiasco

Well. What was it, like 3 posts ago, maybe? That I mentioned how lately, Henry has been so superlatively behaved at Mass he was next in line for a halo over his head? Right. That was then. This is now.

Yesterday was quite possibly the worst day in my 4 year career as a mother. Worse than the severe case of the baby blues I suffered for at least a full year after Henry was born, the year of infant-induced sleep deprivation, and the terrible two's, *combined*. It was just a tough, tough day, and to be honest, I'm still feeling a bit traumatized.

So, yesterday I brought Henry to 10 am Mass with me, like always. Mike wasn't with us, and usually, you could eat off of the goodness that is Henry's performance during Sunday Mass. And it started out fine. We were up in the front, like always, near the chorus. Henry was ok, although not quite as good as always. He was deliberately doing things he knows he's not allowed to do, and he was doing them with a smirky face. Not a good sign. But nothing prepared me for what was to come.

During the Consecration, Henry's behavior escalated. I warned him a few times, and when he didn't cease and desist, I told him that we had to leave. That's when the trouble began.

"NO NO NO, I *NO WANT* TO LEAVE!!!!!!! NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!"

So, what does a mother do? Of course, scoop up aforementioned child and swoop them out of the sanctuary as rapidly as possible. I've done this in the past, and it's worked out just fine.

Well. That was many, many Henry pounds ago. Henry, at nearly 4 years old, weighs close to 50 pounds. He's a solidly built kid, always has been. He's stocky and he's *strong*. He flung himself on the floor *during the Consecration* screaming, kicking, and flailing. I grabbed our stuff and attempted to grab him. Didn't go so well. With all of my strength, I literally could not lift him. He was fighting me with every ounce of his strength and will, and let me tell you, it was pretty effective.

By this point, to say that I was sweating bullets would be the understatement of the millenium. I was desperate, *desperate* I tell you, to get out of that church. Every time I got somewhat of a grip on Henry, our bags and coats slipped off my arm and fell to the ground. We're in the front of the church, and I can feel every eye in the house on my back as I'm struggling.

Finally, I had had it. I grabbed Henry with all the adrenaline-driven force I could muster, and abandoned our coats and bags in the pew. I dragged him out the side entrance and gave him an earful. I was physically shaking from the exertion of trying to contain him and move him against his will. But I had an even bigger problem. We couldn't go anywhere without my car keys, which were in my purse...which was still in the church. I could have cried right then and there.

Doing some crying was my son, who was still throwing a fit and now sobbing that he didn't want to leave. I would have loved to still be able to receive Communion, but if these 4 years have taught me anything, I knew that after the point we were at, there's no going back. I had to get him extracted from the situation ASAP, and I had no help whatsoever. And I have to say, maybe this is me being oversensitive, but I was feeling a bit wounded that not a single person (and there were many) in the surrounding pews came to my aid. Seeing my struggle with the out of control preschooler and our belongings, I was hoping that someone would offer to carry our things, but alas. Likely, people thought that they would embarrass me further by acknowledging the disturbance.

At this point, it was a lose/lose situation, so I waited until the organ struck up the Communion hymn, and stole back inside, Henry sobbing in tow, to grab our stuff. When he realized that we were then proceeding to the back of the church, he began full meltdown mode again. I dragged him to the back of the church where the ugly scene continued. By this time, I was so flustered, I could barely button our coats. Not that he let me put his on, no sir, so the dragging continued, this time coatless. I began to fear that someone was going to think that I was mistreating Henry; we're out in public, on a busy street, and I'm dragging my child as he sobs. I would manage to carry him for a few strides until he wrenched himself painfully out of my grasp. It was absolutely excruciating. By the time we reached the car, I was in tears.

We get to the car, and unsurprisingly, Henry refuses to get into his car seat. I try to restrain him and harness him in, and at least 5 full minutes later, I haven't gained an iota of ground. I give up. I actually drove home without him strapped into his car seat, something I've never done before, but I didn't know what else to do.

When we got home a few minutes later, I was furious. Never in my life have I been so embarrassed. I left Henry screaming in the driveway and hurried into the house. If there was any doubt in Mike's mind as the state of affairs, I'm sure he figured it out pretty quickly when I came in and announced

"I need you to come out here and get YOUR SON."

I left Mike to deal with Henry and ran upstairs to our bedroom, where I sobbed for 15 straight minutes. I then knocked back a shot of whiskey. All before 11:30 in the morning. Yes, it was *that bad*.

As I sobbed in Mike's arms shortly thereafter, I couldn't really articulate why I was taking this all so hard. Every parent has experienced their child acting out in front of others. As Claire, my bellydance instructor says of veils - they're like kids; you think you have them trained, and WHAM! They embarrass you in public.

It's like I feel that in some way I'm a failure - a failed Catholic parent? I'm not certain why I feel this way. I just felt so helpless, and having my (significant) struggle witnessed by others evokes a tremendous feeling of being exposed and shamed.

One of the things I sobbed to Mike is that I seriously don't know how I'm ever going to go back to our parish; I'm paranoid and self-conscious even when it's not warranted, so this is so much worse! Given the Nervous Nelly introvert something to *really* freak out over. My sweet husband says, soothingly:

"Oh, don't worry, Sweetie. Next week my parents are here visiting, and you can go to the Latin Mass!"

Sigh. Yes, it's true, my mother-in-law and I usually go to the Traditional Latin Mass at an old church downtown when she visits, so I won't have to go to my parish, but that doesn't really solve my problem though, does it?

The rest of the day continued in the same vein, with Henry pulling out all the stops, and me going to bed, exhausted and physically sore from the exertion. It just wasn't a good day. Certainly an emotional low point in my journey as a parent. I took it very, very hard.

But I like to think that God uses everything for good. I'm not certain what that is in this case :) but I'm thinking positive. God has a plan; I just have to do my best in the circumstances that He has asked of me, and I am Henry's mommy. Not all days are going to be easy days; perhaps I can grow as a parent based on this experience.

After Henry went to bed, Mike and I played a board game, and we had a really good time. The game had a good vs. evil thing going on, and I chose a character aligned with good, *halo*; his starting point was the chapel :) I was in there praying a lot, which helped my character build up strength. It was light hearted and fun, and helped me to feel a bit more normal after an unendingly long day....

Oh sigh. I just got off the phone with my dentist's office, and they needed to reschedule my wisdom tooth extraction (I know, right? could this week get any worse?!) for tomorrow afternoon, meaning that I have to bring Henry, because Mike will be teaching. *SOB*

God is using all of this to build grace within me...right? Somebody reassure me :)

My blog hits the big time...

Well, not exactly :) But I'm honored that my humble blog was highlighted by Cam at A Woman's Place (one of my favorites, btw :) as being a favorite of hers, and worthy of the award cited above. I'm thrilled!

In passing on the tradition, the following are the blogs I would cite as my favorites, in addition to Cam's:

Blair at Blair's Blessings
Emmy at Journey of a Catholic Nerd Writer
Jennifer at Conversion Diary

I feel privileged to (a) have this blog as a creative outlet, and (b) to know that people actually care and read it! This is a good day.

In other news, I have more crochet pictures to post, so I'll take those and post them Monday. I finished Henry's crayon-hued mittens and scarf. I'll take a photo of him modeling them that will leave us all breathless with his sheer adorableness :) I want to also make him a matching hat, but my eyes needed a break from that yarn for a bit... I'm about to embark on a shawl for my friend Irena, in a lovely deep pink color. And I finished a hat for myself.

So, the hat...I think it's ok now. I fetched a pattern for a basic cloche from Crafty Beaver and set to work with a lovely deep green yarn. I crocheted away, and finished in only 2 nights. It's a quick pattern using a J hook and two strands of yarn at once. A few nights ago as I finished off and tucked in my end, I felt triumphant. Granted, the hat looked a tad large. But I was still optimistic, and raced to the bathroom mirror to pop it on my head.

The only way I can possibly describe how I looked is that my head looked like a giant green mushroom. Not the look I was going for. I moved it around a bit on my head (and believe me, there was a *lot* of room for movement) trying to get a better angle. I found that if I put my long hair forward on my shoulders, it looked passable, but I wasn't going for passable - I was going for super cute. And if a hat has rules for looking decent, well, that's just not a good hat.

Despite my husband's protestations that it looked great (he knows how to win brownie points) I tucked it away in the storage. That day, I thought to myself - why make another hat? The beauty of crochet is that you can rip stitches out wily nily with no repurcussions whatsoever. So that's what I did.

Mike took Henry up to bed, and I pulled the entire hat out save for the first few rounds. Mike came downstairs and it looked like some sort of vicious hat murder had just taken place. Yarn was strewn everywhere. But I stitched away, and, with an enormous pile of yarn still at my feet, I redid the hat in a smaller size. I mean, the leftover pile was HUGE. That tells you how big the hat used to be. *shudders* (oh, and I figured out one reason why it was so big before - I was crocheting into the slip stitch at the end of each round; oops :)

So, I hurry into the bathroom. I pop it on my head...ok, well, it wasn't so easy to "pop" it on my head this time. In fact, I had to downright squeeze. And Voila! It looks a bit ski cappish, but overall it's cute. It looks like a normal hat rather than something I clearly made myself and screwed up.

After all that, the bottom line is that I will take a picture over the weekend and post it on Monday. I started a pair of matching mittens a the knitting lunch today, and those didn't go so well. It's a shell pattern, and I had shells flying everywhere. By the end of round 3 the thing looked like an 80's hair scrunchy. I pulled it out. We'll start afresh with a cable pattern. All will be well, never fear, pretty green yarn!

Happy All Hallows Eve and Feast of all Saints everyone!

Cuter than a speeding bullet...

My little superhero this morning, on his way to his first school Halloween party:

My precious little angel. I miss him already - wish I were home snuggling with him.

So, last night, as I mentioned, I stopped off at the local Catholic store to purchase a pair of children's rosary beads for my precious Catholic child. They had a couple pairs of the same set, which were cute, but larger than I anticipated. They look similar to these except huger and with white flowers painted on each bead. They were guaranteed non-toxic, so I think they were designed for drooling babies to suck on. They were just...so big. I looked at a few other corded rosaries (the cord is the key here; those little chain links don't do well with toddlers/preschoolers), but finally decided on the official children's model - each decade contained beads of bright colors, and Henry is really into his colors right now. I knew he would love them, so I bought them. They were under $10.

Naturally, me being me, I couldn't resist browsing a bit. I gravitated to the children's book section and pawed through the St. Joseph Picture Books. I think everyone raised Catholic has seen these things - they're thin little paperback filled with old fashioned illustrations and solid, traditional Catholic teaching. Their solemnity can instill a bit of a giggle here and there, but overall I love these books. There are seriously like 100 different books in this series. Henry already owns The Holy Rosary and My First Prayer Book. I looked through quite a few of them; at only $1.25 each, I felt I could splurge :) I ended up choosing My First Catechism and The Sacramentals of the Church. I figured we could add the Catechism to his nightly Bible stories. What I liked about the sacramentals book is that it talks about a bunch of things he's expressed interest in, like lighting candles, ashes, palms, blessing of the throats on St. Blaise's feast day, etc.

So, I brought them home and Henry quickly discovered them. He *loves* the rosary; he carried it around the house with him and kept touching the beads in amazement. He noticed right away that the simple wooden cross was missing Jesus' body, and asked "Where's God?" Oh my gosh, don't you just love him?!

About a half hour before bed, he asked if we could "say" our rosaries. I brought a pair of mine down and showed him the mysteries in his little rosary book. He selected the Luminous Mysteries, so we agreed to meditate upon Jesus' baptism. He leapt from decade to decade wily nily based solely upon bead color, but overall he did a *fabulous* job. He's learning the Our Father, so we said that together. But when it came to the Haily Mary, we seriously had a prayer group style rosary going - I'd say one part, and he'd jump right in with the other.

I enjoyed it so, so much. I think we're going to do a Feast of All Saints thing on Sunday, and we'll start delving into his new books at bedtime.

When he went to bed, we tucked his new beads into his "chooch" book drawer - a drawer in our end table where he keeps his St. Joseph board books and the new picture books. Not sure how all the religious books ended up in that one spot, but it works. He put his beads in there and I put mine next to them - so our rosaries are resting comfortably until tonight :) My precious little dumpling...