My friend Joshie has a blog that is so worth checking out, here's a sample post for you. I always find good, thought-provoking, inspiring and funny information on his blog. This post in particular is just so right on. Go Joshie!

Baby Talk

Prequels here and here.





What? Gregory's calling Lucy?! No way! I thought I was his girl. Well, I'll just have to give him a call and get this straightened out. It's so strange though...
I thought she and I were BFF.
ExCUSE me? You expect me to call him on this tired, old car phone? This is totally embarrasing.
Heya' Greggy-boy - what's up? I mean seriously, an older woman? I know she's cute but -
Hold on a minute, I feel like I'm being watched.

























What?! You were listening in?! You've ruined my whole life! Gregory will think I'm such a baby, can't even have enough privacy to make a phonecall!

Liturgy

I just started reading Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, and I found that he has said what I think about liturgical discussion and disputes perfectly. So, with no further ado...

[Liturgy.] There is no subject in the world (always excepting sport) on which I have less to say then liturgiology...The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping...A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question, "What on earth is he up to now?" will intrude. It lays one's devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, "I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.

Rats! I laughed for like a year when I read that.

He (We) finishes up by saying...

I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put. But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home it it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship. You give me no chance to acquire the trained habit.

More God Bwesses

After Mass today Moses found his pal Norah, the daughter of good friends of ours, and they ran up and down the pews after each other (don't judge me!) and then up and down the hallway. When she had to leave he tackled her so she couldn't go and then proceeded to whine about missing Norah for the whole ride home. So, tonight at night prayers...
"And God bwess Norah. And God bwess Norah running. And God bwess me running. And God bwess the chase."
Even funnier when you take into consideration that both sets of parents have long ago decided that they are a match-to-be. God bless the chase, indeed.

My Radio Life

Well, I was obviously born and raised in a radio culture. For the majority of my day the radio is on and I'm either not listening or half listening. I'm rarely REALLY listening (maybe while I'm cooking or nursing). But, these are the shows that I get snippets of all day long (local stations for those in the area).
7:30 - 9am, Music and Company with Tom Allen.(89.9 Canadian NPR, weird, huh?) This is classical music that I get started with. Tom Allen is awesome. He's funny and he makes the music relevant and therefore more enjoyable.
9 - 12 pm, Laura Ingrahamm (1600) Politics, FUNNY, culture and she is a Catholic convert (for serious, not like some)
12 - 1 pm, nothing or Rush (760)
1 - 2 pm, Dr. Ray Guerendi (990)Catholic Parenting advice - the best
2-3 pm, Dave Ramsey (1600) Money Advice, no-debt philosophy and awesome baby-step plan that David and I are making our way through. Good inspiration to be frugal.
3-4 pm, Dr. Laura (1600) Some good, some bad but generally makes me a better wife.
4-6 pm, well duh. Al Kresta (990). "Looking at the world throught the lens of Scripture and teaching of the Catholic Church" Just about everything makes it through this show and it has great analysis and great interviews.

At 7 I switch to TV - JK, a little ;)

I don't have all these shows on all the time but if I'm going to listen during those times, these are what I listen to.

Four Delicious Years

Here's to 75 more delicious years. Cheers (virtual clinking).

Phonetic Foibles

We looked into the living room and saw Moses knocking Lily over. After dutifully doing his 3 minutes in the naughty chair he gets up and walks over to Lily:

"Wiwy, I farry for knockin' you up."

Worth the Hype, 2

Mom's Advice

Boy oh boy. It has been a rough, rough ride here in the Love family household for the past few weeks. There's been next to no sleep because I'm an idiot. You all read about my brilliant, easy transition to the BBCB, right? And the followup that showed the downward slope the transition was taking? Well...it's just been...oi. I've never felt so defeated in my life. This less-than-3-year-old was ruling my world and I was just at a complete loss.
The fatal flaw in the BBCB transfer was the oversight of the bottle. You may not like how Bush handled the whole WMD thing but, trust me, it was nothing compared to the great bottle oversight of '07. Duh, duh, duh! You do NOT put a child into a sleeping arrangement without bars BEFORE you wean him from a bottle!!! You take the bottle when he can't do anything about it except cry in the dark.
So, we took the bottle away. His heart broke, my heart broke. We just broke. We broke down - seriously broke down. Once the sobbing turned into pitiful whimpering (over the course of several days) he decided that if he couldn't have a bottle to sleep with then he would self-medicate with all manner of distraction. Mainly, playing in his room and not taking naps anymore. Which, oh - my - gosh, he still needs.
The whole thing spirled downward to the point where he wasn't going to sleep at night until he fell asleep on the floor, then he'd wake up all disoriented and freaked out in the middle of the night and would take an hour to calm down again. He'd refuse to take a nap and his behavior during the normal waking hours was turning the whole family into schizophrenics with ticks.
We have removed everything from his room - there's nothing except his dresser and the bed. We have spanked and spanked and spanked - to no avail. We have used "blackout" techniques. We've tried rewards. We've tried praying. I have no hope, I can't think of a single thing that we havn't tried. Until!
Ahh, ahhh, ahhh - enter, mom. She gives me advice.
I bring up the carseat. I put him in it. He sees that he is in a desperate situation and sobs. I tell him it's a warning - if he gets out of bed then it's the seat for him: he'll stay there until he falls asleep. I let him out of the seat, he climbs in bed.
We have now had 4 bed-time successes and I've never even had to use the seat. Just the mention of it makes him cry. He hasn't gotten out of bed once and he's such a doll when he's gotten enough sleep! Happy, happy Loves.
Worth the Hype 2: Mom's Advice

Night Prayers with Moses

"And God Bwess Unco Nicky and Unco....hmmmm....Nicky and Unco.....Nicky. And God Bwess Unco Evan. And God Bwess Uncle David - oh mommy - Uncle David is my sister."
Picture from here.

Worth the Hype

I was at my friends for dinner the other day and was poking around their kitchen and noticed a little whiteboard on the fridge that had an ongoing list entitled "Worth the Hype". Such a good idea. I'm stealing it. But, I'm giving credit where credit is due: Anne and Tim.
So with no further delay, my first entry on Things that are Worth the Hype:
DailyLit.com
I don't know how much hype there's been about this but I'm really enjoying it. You can get a book in bite-size chunks in your inbox each day, just during the weekdays or on Mon, Wed and Fri - your choice. You "subscribe" for free and then you can read books in 5 minute increments that you would not usually find the time to read. If you're like me then you like to have a nice empty inbox and will read just about anything in order to be able to delete it.
Upsides - easy to manage; free; some of us are more likely to do something if it involves electronics
Downsides - since it's a free service the books are limited - mostly classics that are out of print long ago - but you can certainly find something that hits you with a, "I've always wanted to read that!" feeling. Also, you can't underline. For those of us underlining addicts this causes much frustration that can only be slightly allieviated by use of the ctrl C and ctrl V and a Word doc.
Of course, nothing, nothing beats the feel and smell of an old, much loved book and I'm a big, big fan of cushy armchairs, steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a quiet evening chuckling and/or crying with an old booky chum but...
yeah, right. I have 2 little ones who don't sleep in the evenings (or afternoon, or mornings for that matter) right now and I'll take what I can get. So, Anna Karinina - here I come!

Update on the book list

I updated the book list on the sidebar...I really recommend every single thing that I'm reading right now. Some will probably be on the list a long time since they are long or, in the case of the weightloss ones, well...you know.

Gas Station Brain Fart

The details of this story are all true and have not been changed or enhanced. The brain in question is truly this brokendown. It has been undergoing severe strain and exhuastion due to the complete meltdown of the BBCB transfer and while this is no excuse for the farts it is, I hope, some kind of explanation.
Coming home from a softball game this past Sunday we stopped for gas. I pumped 16 of the 18 gallons needed and then realized that I had never turned the ignition off, risking life and limb of my entire family. As we drove away a man flagged us down to inform us that I had not screwed the gas cap back onto the car and the whole side was open and flapping around. Skip ahead 3 days and the phone rings. A man says, "hello, my name is Dan." I nearly scream, "I'm on the DO NOT CALL LIST!" but luckily I wait because he follows up by saying, "I think I have your debit card. I found it in the middle of a gas station Sunday night."
I have, in a single visit to the gas station, risked blowing my family up twice and handing my entire bank account to a stranger who googled my name and found my phone number AND address. So, I am tempted to just go into Moses' room and call a truce with the BBCB but maybe instead I'll just stay home for however long it takes for me to sleep again - that just risks burning down the apartment.

Really Useful Cheeks

Last night we were putting Moses into his BBCB (see prior posts) for the night and Lily was still awake so she joined us for the nightly ritual. Moses is always very excited when she is able to join us. So we got to the kissing part of the night and he was having trouble planting one where he wanted it on her. He insists, INSISTS on kissing her on the mowf - regardless of snot cascading from the facial orifaces. So last night, as on many prior nights, he was having a hard time keeping her head still enough to get the kiss on the mouth. So, in a final desperate attempt to land the smooch correctly he grabbed her cheeks, one in each hand and turned her towards him, aimed, and planted a big juicy one on her. And I thought those cheeks were just good for sinking your lips into.