Big news Monday:

ANNE IS SAYING "MA MA."

Clearly, my months of indoctrination have worked. I mean, she doesn't seem to realize that Ma Ma is my *name* given that she just chants it at random, but we'll ignore that part. I'm just thrilled that she's saying it at all, given that Hank was 18 months old before he said Ma Ma. The only good part about that was that when he'd wake up at the crack of dawn and start chanting "Da Da Da Da," I'd tell Mike that he should go fetch him, since clearly, the baby wanted him. :)

She also slept better this weekend. The 7:30 bedtime really seems to be helping, plus, well. She's doing the one thing that that is pretty much guaranteed to improve her sleep: she's developing and getting older. That's what all the "helpful" sleep advice people whose children allegedly slept through the night from the hospital fail to tell you. Your baby WILL sleep better. They're just not going to do it as a young infant. When they get older they'll sleep better. And thank God for that.

Anne turned 10 months old this weekend. I have very mixed feelings on this. :) She's so extremely precious, and we're enjoying her so much. So I'm focusing on the positives. But on the other hand: my baby! I don't want her to turn a year old, I'm just not ready for that.

Anyway, that's that. If you didn't catch my Sunday post, be sure to do that and let me know what you think. :) I'm still contemplating that ebook reader, so leave a comment if you have some advice. I did, however, remember something that has the potential to put that plan on hold: the used bookstore.

How I *adore* the used bookstore! I haven't been there in years. But I could trade in my romances there and you get 25% of the cover price in credit. Then when you buy other books there, you automatically get 50% off the cover price, plus an additional 25% off from your accumulated credit. So, you end up getting 75% off. And this store is targeted to women's fiction. It's full of romance novels. I haven't traded in any books there in ages, but I could again very easily. This would solve my space problem. Plus it would preserve my love of my precious print books. And buying the print books via Harlequin's web site is still dirt, dirt cheap, even cheaper than ebooks! They have everything discounted, plus perpetual coupon codes for money off your total. So I could get new romances there and trade them in at the used bookstore for supplementary books. Hum. Not sure what I'll do. Mike is pleased with my desire to explore the used bookstore again. He nearly keeled over last night when I mentioned that I was contemplating a Kindle. He's definitely not an electronic device lover. If I tried to read in bed with my Kindle he may contemplate an annulment.

But the Kindle would still be a nice supplement to my print books, no? If you love your ebook reader, convince me. :)

I may go over to the dark side

That's right. I'm considering buying an ebook reader.

This is rather anathema in my world. You see, I love books. Real, live books. I like the way they look all lined up on my shelf and tucked onto my bedside table. I like the way they feel in my hands. I even like the way new books smell. And I became a librarian because as a child I so loved to read, and that has continued throughout my life.

I'm certain that actual print books will always have a place in my life. But I've been noticing a few things lately. The first is space. I keep having to weed my print collection because we simply don't have room to store all of the books that we'd like to. Plus, there are a lot of free ebooks out there. Stuff that is out of copyright (St. There's The Story of a Soul!), promotional offers to get you hooked on an author. I've been getting back into my Harlequin roots again, and that's been making me ponder: I love these books, but what do I do with them after I read them? I'll keep some favorites, but I don't need all of these little romance novels taking up space on my one bookcase. I end up giving them to friends to read, or donating them to the library book sale. AND there are many of those books out there for free as ebooks! Or, very inexpensive, often times much less expensive than getting the print. Not always, certainly. And there's nothing I like more than having a shipment of books waiting for me. But sometimes, there are things available as ebooks that you can't get in print (or would have to order used in print, adding shipping fees to your purchase that you wouldn't ordinarily pay if you bought new).

Like for example, I'll embarrass myself by admitting something: I like the old Harlequin NASCAR series. Go ahead, laugh. But those books are mostly out of print now. A few are available new on Amazon. Harlequin only sells them as ebooks now, they're totally out of stock in their print book store. One is availble for free as an ebook over at Amazon, and they have others in the Kindle store that are all less expensive than buying them in print, either new or used. Harlequin has the whole series available in ebook format.

Anyway, I have about $56 in credit from Amazon from trading in some old books I wasn't using anymore. And their least expensive Kindle is a mere $79. It's got me to thinking that maybe I should just buy it. It would only cost me $23 with the credit! I'd still certainly buy and read print books. But the Kindle would allow me to access free books I wouldn't ordinarily have access to at all, and save money sometimes if I'm not really wedded to keeping a copy of the print book lying around.

But it worries me. Will I still enjoy reading on the device the way I do print books? Will I become one of those annoying people who always has their nose buried in their electronic device? No offense, but those people really get under my skin. :)

So, what do you all think? Should I do it? Do you have a Kindle or a Nook?

What's new in Anne's world...

Unfortunately, "sleep" is not new in her world. But we're persevering.

What is new to her this week is finger foods. She's loving her foray into Cheerios. And those little puffs you can buy at the store that have approximately 20 calories per 200,000 puffs. But it's sweet, you can pop her into the high chair with some of those on her tray and she'll happily entertain herself for 20-30 minutes while you actually have your hands free to do something other than pull her chubby form away from Something That You Don't Want Her To Have.

She used to hate her high chair. Suddenly, it's her best friend. Usually. Occasionally she'll kick and throw her head back when you try to put her in there (this can't possibly bode well for the Terrible Two's, sigh). But most of the time she's happy as a clam in there.

We have a traditional looking Fisher Price high chair. Easy to wipe down and wheel about when the need arises. And the seat features this little bug print. They're friendly looking bugs. Although Anne apparently does not share my opinion. I keep catching her swiveled around in the seat looking at the bugs with an expression that can only be read as:

"There you are again you EVIL FIENDS!! Why are you staring at me like that?!"

She's precious.

Spring has sprung

Signs that spring is officially here:

(1) I'm no longer wearing my cute LLBean Storm Chasers to and from work and have started wearing my Mary Janes home.

(2) A transitional fleece jacket has replaced my heavy winter wool coat.

(3) I'm starting to knit with cotton.

(4) A crow flew by me today with some straw-like stuff in her beak. At least this year she wasn't bound for our house. Last year we had a mourning dove nest in one of our windowsills and house sparrows in our attic vent. It's like there was a "SYMPATHETIC BREEDING FEMALE" aura that they all sensed.

(5) I'm coveting yarn in spring greens and pinks. Because I already don't have enough yarn. *snorts*

(6) Our tulips are starting to come up.

I love spring. Such a fresh, sweet feeling to it.

A lenten update, and the future of our Catholic schools

I was thinking about Lent this morning because I haven't been doing nearly as well as I would like with my daily devotions. When March started, I moved over to trying out the sample copy of Magnificat that I received, and as happened before, I'm just not using it. The simple truth is that I get lazy. I love saying my rosary in the mornings, but reading the morning and evening prayers just isn't happening. I did do better with my Liturgy of the Hours set, maybe I should go back to those. But as much as I admire Magnificat, I just don't use it to it's fullest potential. Hank at least has been using his Magnifikid! He still has 2 more issues left (they're actually divided into small booklets for each week) and we'll see how he does with those. I'm on the fence about getting him a subscription. I'm much more likely to pursue a subscription for him than I am for myself for the monthly Magnificat, I just want to make sure that he's going to really, really use it for $35 a year. I'll make a decision in the next week or so.

I will say that I've been keeping up with reading only Catholic nonfiction and religious fiction for Lent. I've been moving forward with The End and the Beginning and I love it. I finished up my Amish book and I plucked a new Catholic fiction volume off my shelf that I received for my birthday. I've been *very* tempted by some secular romance novels lately. I feel no compunction in saying that my reading roots are romance fiction, and I love this genre. I've been hoarding inexpensive Harlequin titles on my shelves that I picked up on the cheap, and I'm *dying* to delve into them, but I'm managed herculean restraint and I'm saying them for Easter time. I feel very martyr-like for my efforts.

Anyway, I was dwelling on my lenten failures this morning as I poured my cereal and Anne attempted to eat the throw rug at my feet, when Mike drew my attention to an article in the local section of our newspaper: yet another nearby Catholic school, running for the past *95 years* is closing at the end of this academic year.

This is so, so sad. Over the past 5 years or so, this area has seen a deluge of beautiful and historic Catholic parishes and schools close, and it's just heartbreaking.

We live in the heart of the Rust Belt. This area, once thriving with immigrants and their families, has had a massive loss of population. Those immigrants were mainly of Italian and Polish descent, so there were a LOT of Catholics. All of those Catholics attended gorgeous old-style Catholic churches and sent their kids to Catholic school. This school in question, the one that is closing, peaked in attendance with approximately 650 students back in the late 1950's and early 1960's. 10 years ago it had about 185 students. This school year, it had 109 students. For the upcoming academic year, only 60 students had enrolled, despite aggressive efforts to boost enrollment.

There's a lot of competition in this area, despite prior school closings. Very close to this school are 2 other Catholic schools , plus 5 others within a decently close driving distance, including the one Henry attends. And that's after 3 Catholic schools in this same area closed over the past few years! And the fact of the matter is, there's not as many people living in this area anymore. And of those people remaining that are Catholic, many of them just don't feel a pressing need to send their kids to Catholic school the way families used to. Now granted, there are lots of reasons parents decide to send their children to a public or otherwise non-Catholic school, and that's totally understandable. For many people, it's financial. The public school is free (aside from our tax money, of course). And for children with special needs the public school often offers more services for them.

But I can't help but think a huge issue is the fact that so many Catholics do not (or rarely) attend Mass anymore. People that aren't involved in their parish community are much less likely to send their children to the parish school. That combined with the two issues I mentioned above translates into a much smaller pool of students interspersed over all of these old Catholic schools, and you see the closings that we're experiencing now.

The school that Henry attends is doing well, thankfully, but it *is* smaller than the other 2 close by Catholic schools, which are absolutely thriving. This makes me terribly nervous. I just continue to recommend the school to other parents and hope for the best. I'd think that Henry's school would get a few families from this school that is closing, since it's not too far away. There's one that is closer that I'm certain will pick up the majority of them. Our diocese is offering a $500 stipend to all families in the closing school to enroll in any other diocesan Catholic school next year. And they'll be eligible for the discounted parishoner tuition rate. We also receive this rate, since we attend a parish without a Catholic school. Our parish school closed after running for just over 100 years. Only 80 students enrolled. So, so sad.

I mentioned my sadness to Mike, who concurred. I expressed a bit of anxiety about what we would do should Henry's school close, and happily he mentioned that we could look at the other 2 Catholic schools in our town. So, we'll see what happens. But we take pride in Henry's school and support it as much as we can. Enrollment time came up recently for next year, and I'm thrilled that we registered Henry for second grade there.

He came home the other day with a lenten journal that he had to decorate. PRECIOUS. I just love that he is there.

!

ANNE CUT ANOTHER TOOTH.

This makes 6, and yet SHE'S STILL TEETHING. Actively. She tried to suck on the rocking chair last night when I was trying to soothe her back to sleep. So, we're still working on this, but I am grateful that she has 2 brand new little fangs in the past 3 days.

We're hanging in there, but sleep is still an issue. She was only up one time last night, but we were up for about 2 hours together. We did watch a nice episode of The Golden Girls together. :)

So, we'll see how tonight goes, but it seems like the pushed back bedtime is really helping. She's terribly cute, though. Terribly, terribly cute.

Belly dancing makes everything better, which helps since SOMEONE IS WALKING

Well, after a very long week last week with Anne, I'm happy to report that we had a good weekend. And, praise the good Lord above, one new baby fang has come through the gum line. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure at least 1 more is in the immediate wings, but I'll take any reprieve we can get at this point. We also experimented with putting her to bed just a hair later (she was going to bed quite early at 7 pm) and that seems to have helped too.

And we need all the strength we can get at this point given that the child has decided that she is going to start walking. SHE IS 9 AND A HALF MONTHS OLD. This should *not* be happening! I guess it's because she has an older sibling, but holy smokes. I wish she'd cool it a bit.

She stands unassisted very well now. And for a week or so she'd take a few shuffling steps before plopping down to crawl, since that was clearly so much faster for her. But now that we've been having her practice (I suppose we're enabling her, sigh) she'll let go of whatever she's holding on to and come wobbling over to you, beaming as she goes. She doesn't make it very far before going splat, but she's clearly progressing at an alarmingly fast rate. A whole new level of baby-proofing is coming our way.

At any rate, I did manage to peel myself off the couch on Friday night to attend my dance class, and as ever, I'm so soothed by my participation there. I just love those girls. We had a performance scheduled for Sunday, so much rehearsing commenced. It was for a women's retreat at a local hotel.

We have several group numbers that we're all pretty familiar with, so we went with those. We're learning a new cane number, but that one is no where near done yet, so that's been on the shelf for several weeks. Near the end, Claire sprung the big news on us:

"Why don't we do one improv (improvisation, in other words not having a planned choreography, just spontaneous dancing) number at the end, and we can all spread out around the room and try and get people to dance?"

Oh boy. Improv scares the absolute daylights out of me. There's nothing a control oriented person fears more than not having a plan. Therefore, I made it my immediate goal to plan out my improv.

I mean, I knew I couldn't totally create a choreography or anything. But at least I could practice improvising to the song Claire said she was going to use and maybe have a few accents or combinations planned out ahead of time. I know that all professional dancers improvise and to truly grow as a dancer I need to challenge myself with this more often, but I can't help it. It scares me. I widen my eyes at it and slowly back away.

So on Sunday morning, a few hours before the performance, while Mike worked on his grading, I set Hank up with a video and Anne in her high chair with some Cheerios. I put the music on and tried dancing around the kitchen. I felt ridiculous, but Anne seemed to enjoy it. She bopped along with the music as she munched. By the end of 45 minutes or so, I felt better. Sweaty, but better. Just relaxing with the music at home inspired me a bit. Plus, I discovered one extremely vital secret:

My veil. Using a veil while improvising makes it infinitely easier. It's almost like doing a duet. There's something else for everyone to look at, and it makes me feel a bit less like an animal in a cage at the zoo. Plus, you can swirl it around in a bunch of different ways while you search your mind frantically for what movement you'll do next:

"ooohhhh pretty! Good, that buys me 5 additional seconds to figure out what the heck I'm going to do next."

So, that helped. Soon it was time to costume up and head out. I just prayed that none of my neighbors looked out their window as I walked out to our garage in my mumu-like coverup with sparkly green costume sticking out underneath. And sandals. I know it's March, but I had just painted my toenails. My version of a pedicure: paint over the old and chipping polish that I last applied back in November. Instant glamour.

I arrived and saw another mumu-clad figure entering the hotel. A kindred spirit! It was a member of my class, and so we walked in together. I give the woman at the front desk a lot of credit for not batting an eye when we walked in. She directed us to the room we needed and we found the rest of our class bunched up in a corner, chatting. Claire was teaching for the hour prior to our performance, and so we were waiting for her to finish. She wasn't sure how many people she would get for the event, saying it could be anywhere from 3 to 300.

Well, it was 3. Or, 4 to be exact. 3 women and one surly looking teenager. Thankfully, due to the fact that we now outnumbered our audience, Claire told us to axe the improv section. It might scare people to have multiple belly dancers vying for their attention, all focused only on THEM.

This took quite a bit of the pressure off, to be sure. Group numbers are very non-nerve wracking for me now. So, we did them, and Claire did a smashing solo with a sword. One audience member looked quite enthusiastic and was watching us, smiling. The others, not so much. Claire always tells us to "connect with your audience! make eye contact, smile!" but of course that only works when the audience looks alive. But what can one do? We did well, and we had fun. We took some pictures afterwards. And it got me excited by the thought of planning a new solo for the upcoming spring hafla.

And thankfully, I had gotten more sleep, so all was well.

The birds tell me that spring is here...

...but it's hard for me to tell, since I can hardly see straight I'm so tired. Last night was another Hall of Famer "We'll Torture Her By Talking About This Night Until She Grows Up And Has Her Own Kids." BECAUSE THEN SHE WILL UNDERSTAND.

I knew it was coming though, because she screamed for the entire evening, and it wasn't just her regular "I'm tired!" cry. It was much more intense than that, and I knew it had to be her teeth. Plus, she's soaking whole sleepers with her drool.

So, then the night commenced, and we won't dwell on it, lest I slip down into a sleep-deprived depression. We'll just say it was bad. Real bad. Luckily, Mike and I have navigated these types of nights before, and so we were still speaking to each other this morning. Sleep deprivation brings out the worst in us, like it does most people, I would think.

And so this morning, as I drove onto campus, I saw a robin. Precious little guy! His arrival means that surely, spring is right around the corner. And so is sleep. Please God.

I have belly dance tonight, and somehow I have to manage to drag my pathetic self there because we have a performance on Sunday. How I'm going to manage to dance when I can barely climb the stairs is still a mystery, but somehow, I'll work it out.

Here's hoping that when I post on Monday, I'm perky and well rested. :)

Slowly trying to regain consciousness

In Parent Speak, last night was "less bad" than the nights we've had over the course of the past week. What this actually means is that this is our second kid and our sleep standards are so low that anything short of "Anne set off a bomb in her crib every 20 minutes" is "decent." We had lots of trouble getting her to sleep at the beginning of the night, and she woke several times, but overall, it didn't suck as badly as it has for the past few nights.

Yesterday she had her 9 month well baby visit, which Mike took her to. When I got home from work, I read the canned sheet the office gives you at each well visit letting you know what should be going on with your baby at that age and things to look out for. Well. Tucked right into the middle of the included bullet points was this:

"Your baby may wake at night. Make sure to place a safe but loved toy in her crib."

I read that out loud. Then I looked at Mike. We both burst out laughing.

I mean, really. Between being pregnant and then having an infant, I haven't slept solidly through the night for nearly 2 years. DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THE BABY MAY WAKE ME UP AT NIGHT?! Thank GOD they mentioned that. Otherwise, I may not have realized it.

My mother keeps telling me that NONE of us were still waking in the night at 9 months. Well, except for my younger sister, whom is never permitted to forget this travesty she committed against my parents. :) But me and my older sister? Sleeping through the night by 6 months. Or so she claims. I keep glaring at her and telling her that she's lying, but she's insistent.

At any rate, I'm hanging in there. And hanging on to hope that at one year, that magic fairy sleep dust will fall from the ceiling and Anne will suddenly start sleeping for 12 hour stretches. I'll let you know how that turns out.

But in other news, I'm continuing my lenten reading. I haven't picked up any Catholic fiction, I have to admit, and have succumbed to the siren call of Amish fiction. But I figure, it's wholesome, so it's all good. But after I finished The New Men I treated myself to an Amazon order (mostly to procure season 1 of Downton Abbey) but I added in George Weigel's most recent book, The End and the Beginning.

I have Weigel's original biography of John Paul II, and although I've read significant parts of it, I've never made it all the way through. I bought it when it first came out, and so it's this behemoth of a hardcover and it's actually physically difficult for me to read it. But every Lent I contemplate diving in and finally getting all the way through. When I saw this most recent volume, designed as a supplement to that prior work, I knew that I wanted to get it.

It's a much more manageable size. And it summarizes key events in his early life, but focuses on his fight against communism (using previously unavailable documents from Poland), the last five years of his life from the Great Jubilee until his death, and reflections on the most significant themes in his pontificate.

I started it as soon as it arrived on Monday, and so far I'm thrilled. It's quite captivating and readable and although it's still long, I know I'll be able to make it all the way through. It'll still take me well past Lent though, probably all the way to Pentecost. :) But I'm loving it.

So, onward we plow through Lent...

*collapses*

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. I had every intention of posting yesterday, but well. Let's see...

I arrived at work in a sleep-deprived stupor, so that didn't exactly start things off with a bang. Anne was just up and up and UP, and she just wouldn't go back to sleep once she was up, which is what she does when she's sick or teething. So I was exhausted. Yet another OPERATION: LOOK ALIVE dispatched in the early morning hours so that I could show my face in public. Oh, and I found a few more gray hairs. And this after my previous efforts to rid myself of them (CL:"I'm very upset about all this gray hair I seem to be getting." Mike: "I don't see any gray hair." CL: "That's because I pulled them all out.") So I was in a *great* mood to start off the day.

I had a reference shift. No, wait, a meeting. It just happened to *last* nearly as long as a 2 hour reference shift. I'm not bitter or anything. I mean, I finished my tea 45 minutes in and was ready to leave then, but apparently other people like meetings. I suppose some things just can't be explained.

Then I had to quickly pump. I had a few business-related emails to get out. Then I had to get my computer ready for it's upcoming upgrade. Well, unfortunately for my computer, it was getting retired. I was slated to get a new machine, and one would have thought I would be happy about such a thing.

But I wasn't. Because I have a Type A personality and I like all my little ducks in a row. I was used to my old computer. I liked him very much. He and I had an understanding. He ran a little slow sometimes, but I put up with it because he put things where I could find them and satisfied my other needs. Since we have only very old and slow computers at home and have no desire to pay for new ones, my small iTunes library lives on my work computer. And I was panicking about moving everything over without losing anything.

I set about following Apple's directions for saving the library. I let it do it's thing and went on my knitting lunch break. When I returned, 25 minutes prior to my new computer arrival, I found that the save had aborted about a quarter of the way through because I didn't have enough space on my iPod.

!!!!!!!!!!!

There commenced Panic Attack #1. I called our wonderful IT group and asked if they could come an hour later than scheduled, and they graciously agreed. I set back to work trying to save everything to my iPod (hereinafter, "Max") so that I could use him as a hard drive to reload the content back onto iTunes on the new machine.

Why didn't I think of using my external hard drive? I have no notion, because I left that at home. As I experienced Panic Attack #2, I cursed myself for being an absolute idiot.

I had to move things around and delete some stuff to create more room on Max. Panic Attack #3. Then I realized that I couldn't find the iTunes folder back on the C drive so that I could always go back to it in case my great "iPod as a hard drive" idea failed. Panic Attack #4. So I had to copy the folder from Max back to the C drive and I nearly didn't have enough time before the IT folks arrived. Panic Attack #5.

By time they got here, I was a wreck. I was over-tired and anxiety-ridden. And then they installed my new machine and there was my iTunes library, with all the content therein, because they had copied it over for me.

*a thing of beauty*

And all those panic attacks were for nothing.

So then I went home and dealt with a needy and exhausted Anne and a hyper Henry. And when we sat down to watch Downton Abbey later, Anne woke up.

And there commenced Abysmal Night #111. Mike and I were so tired that we actually lost count of how many times she woke up. I brought Anne back to her crib around 2 am, and 10 minutes later she was up again, and Mike seemed all confused when he brought her back to our bed and I mentioned that she'd only been in her crib for 5 minutes. He's slept right through that particular part of our nightmare. :)

And that little fang still hasn't broken through the gum.

*sobs*