Let's blearily pray the St. Therese novena together, shall we?

Last night, when I tucked Anne in bed, I had that Knowing Mother Moment, kwim? She had had a sore throat earlier in the day that I attributed to seasonal allergies. She perked up as the day wore on, and had normal energy and appetite levels, but by bedtime was looking worse for the wear. She complained about her nose, and started coughing. Ugh. I gave her a dose of her prescribed allergy medication, had her blow her nose, and got her a cup of water. I got her all soothed and tucked in, but I Knew.

Later, I went upstairs slightly ahead of Mike to prepare for bed, happily listening to a podcast with my earbuds in. When Mike came up 10 minutes later, I could see that he was trying to talk to me, so I took a bud out:

"What's up?"

"Anne's crying."

"She is?"

See? Once again, when you no longer have infants in your house, you totally turn off that Will I Ever Sleep Again?! frenzied mode, and go back to Normal Sleep, Thank You Jesus, mode. I did suspect that we would hear from Anne in the night, but my traumatized mind was still repressing that possibility.

So, we banded together for a soothe session, figuring we could get her cleaned up and comforted and back to sleep in no time. Isn't it funny that even after 10 years of parenting, we are still so naive?

"Sweetheart! We're here, what's wrong?"

*intensified crying*

"Does your head hurt, Honey? Why don't we get a tissue so you can blow your nose."

*dramatic shake of head indicating "NO"*

"How about some more water? It'll soothe your throat."

*More head shakes* Rinse And Repeat.

She refused to talk to us, yet managed to reject every single offer of comfort we suggested. It's a skill, that is.

We did what we could, and left her bedroom. 20 minutes later, we hear crying again. I go in, and we have a repeat of our earlier interaction, complete with dramatic thrashing of blanket. She still wouldn't really let me help her, but I got her to stop crying, and went back to bed. Unsurprisingly (since Anne has *always* had this skill, from the moment she was born), the INSTANT I became completely exhausted and drifted off...

*crying*

*Tiffany assumes a position of denial*

*more crying!*

Sigh.

And I KNEW. When you're up with a newborn all the time, you pretty much can sleep anytime, anywhere, because you're so exhausted. All the time. For like, a YEAR. But when you're not in that mode anymore, you have that one perfect opportunity to fall asleep. Once that passes, it's allllllll over, friends. I was awake, and I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.

I went into Anne's room, and this time she did allow me to help her blow her nose and do other things to make her more comfortable. After that, I went back to bed beside a comfortably sleeping Mike. I didn't have the heart to wake him.

 I read for a bit, hoping to get re-tired, but all to no avail. During the next two hour stretch, one further intervention was required in Anne's room, but then I could tell she fell more deeply asleep, and she was fine for the rest of the night. Me, on the other hand, stayed awake for another hour before finally dozing off, and I really had to force it. Naturally, when 6 am rolled around, I was SOUND ASLEEP, totally incoherent, and could have slept for another five hours, easy.

*nostril flare*

That's just the way it is sometimes. But it was a long night. I suspect now that Anne has a cold and not seasonal allergy symptoms. Lots of snuggling will follow tonight.

So I was pretty bleary-eyed this morning as I got ready for work, but I'm persevering. Today is the first day of the St. Therese novena, and guess what? Pray More Novenas now has the prayers available as a podcast, so for those of you who wanted audio to keep up with the novena prayers themselves, this is a huge yay, right?! Here you are, have at it! Go forth and subscribe! If you'd like audio for St. Therese's chaplet, you can pray along with your host, little old me ;-) over here. Fun, yes?

All right, I need to plug along with my day. Mike and I are attending Henry's school open house tonight, and I have lots to do at work. I'll be talking to you again tomorrow or Thursday!

How are you all? How is the first day of the novena going for you?

The Catholic Nook: Chaplet of St. Therese and the "Little Way"

I've been thinking a lot about St. Therese lately. Part of it, I suppose is that my spiritual reading is currently focused on her in Shirt of Flame: A Year With St. Therese of Lisieux. When I do spiritual reading, I normally allot a specified time period in the evening to it. I'll devise a page quota so that I don't slack off. What I'm finding with this book, though, is that I'm so into it that I use it in the prime "reading as I lay happily in bed" time slot. That's pretty major for a non-fiction book, quite an achievement really. This is when I usually read a romance novel involving autumn weather, race car drivers, or cowboys.

And last night I pulled my Kindle out really hoping to see something from St. Therese that "spoke" to me. I had had, let's just say, a *challenging* day. As you can imagine, being a librarian means that I deal with people a lot. And sometimes, as we all know, people aren't so nice. I had a patron yesterday who was so rude I was forced to break out The Librarian Is Being Stern With You look. As a child, I used to be afraid of loud, obnoxious people. No longer. I don't cherish opportunities to deal with them, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. If you are going to march over and attempt to verbally abuse me, I am not going to stand for it, no sir. It only took 30+ years of life lessons to teach me that I don't have to allow anybody to treat me that way. It actually is a disservice to the abuser in question to not let them know that their behavior is out of line and unacceptable. How can they ever try to do better if nobody lets them know that they are acting like a jackass? Forgive my language, but sometimes you've got to call it like you see it. I'm not going to yell back or drop to their level by disrespecting them, but I *am* going to be firm in my response to them. And if they persist, I am going to ask them to leave.

And so yesterday morning, I had one of *those*. I'm actually quite proud of how I handled it, but the whole thing left me shaky and contemplative. This guy (who was very clearly an extreme case) aside, I've been dealing with a lot of students lately, some of them being wonderful experiences, others being quite challenging and annoying. It got me to thinking: am I doing all that I can to stay upbeat in my approach to interacting with them, to stay charitable at all times? On the latter, I can say "yes" without question. I am always charitable to people, even when they are unkind to me. But on the former, I know that I struggle. And not just with the students. I work for my state, and at times things get a bit...bureaucratic. This can lead to disillusionment and downright crotchedyness (new term: officially coined). It's easy to complain a lot about some of the things we deal with here at work, and I have become aware of the fact that the more I complain, the worse I feel about the situation.

Hence, yesterday was a good opportunity for self-reflection and it tied directly into St. Therese's Little Way. How can I do small things with great love and offer them up, the way that she did in the convent? I certainly did offer up my experience yesterday, but there are so many other small opportunities that I just internally whine about rather than try to be more spiritual in my approach. As I read Shirt of Flame, I came to this reflection of author Heather King in the chapter discussing Therese's handling of the painful physical and mental decline of Louis Martin, her father:

"I began to see the value of refraining from criticizing and complaining. The goal isn't to masochistically endure conditions that we could change, if we were willing to make the effort. The goal is to adopt a general policy of not complaining about things that can't be changed, not because we enjoy being rigidly ascetic but because complaining about our private sorrows - traffic, the cost of living, our health, our endless suffering - is not helpful. I began to notice how, when someone called me to 'vent,' I felt as if I myself needed an oxygen tank when I got off the phone."

Yep. Spoke to me. I knew that St. Therese was looking out for me. :) It was nice to have something positive to take away from a very difficult day. Hopefully I won't have to deal with Rude Guy again anytime soon, but just in the students I see and chat with each day, and in the way I view the hoops we have to jump through here at work sometimes, I can do better in my attitude.

And so this got me to thinking about asking for St. Therese's intercession more often. Obviously, she is a woman who speaks my language. :) The photo at the top of this post is a gorgeous St. Therese chaplet designed by Carm at unbreakablerosaries. The chaplet has 24 beads, one for each year of St. Therese's short life. There is one additional bead on the "drop" near her medal, and on this you request: "St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Patroness of Missions, pray for us." A Glory Be is recited on each of the other 24 beads in thanksgiving for St. Therese. It is customary to pray this chaplet for a traditional nine day novena.

This is a chaplet that I do not own. Shocking. Clearly, I need to remedy this situation.

I'll be talking more about St. Therese on October 23rd, our Catholic Book Club day, when I review Shirt of Flame. If you'd like to join me in reading, please hop on the bandwagon now, I'd love to have you. :) Heather King mentions another book that has my curiosity piqued, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux, by Ida Friederike Gorres. Yep, that may make it's way to my Kindle posthaste.

*Image from http://patroncatholicsaints.blogspot.com/2010_02_08_archive.html