Christmas is upon us! I am up at 4:30 am Friday, unable to sleep with worry. I have adoration on Christmas morning, smack in the middle "doing Christmas" and I don't know what to do! I would normally ask a relative to take the hour but...they will all be "doing Christmas" - without me! Anyway, quite the pickle and I'm worried. Of course, things always seem worse then they are in the middle of the night. Maybe the Lord will provide a spotless lamb in the brush...oh, that was someone else's pickle.
So, I've been intending to post a few Moses specials for you as your Christmas gift. Here he is, at his best:
"It's dark again. [this was when the time had just changed and he was fascinated that it just kept getting dark] The sun is sleeping. Where the sun's bwank bwanks?"

"I love daddy. Gecause he my favorite friend." (and yes, my friends, I happened to be rolling tape for this one - preserved for posterity)

"I want to cut off my big, big toe." Yikes! So, I figured out that he meant he wanted to clip his toenail.

After we prayed night-prayers with him one night: "This is good. You are two wonnerful kids."

"Grandma thinks me handsome." Heck yeah!

"Sometimes I say, "cwappy"." Which I take to mean, Mommy, sometimes you say crappy and you need to stop because now, sometimes I say crappy (which, btw I've never heard him say except in this sentence - oops, there I go rationalizing again).

"This is amazing oatmeal!" Who knew? I wasn't aware that oatmeal even had an amazing side.

I've been layering his PJs at night and putting on his Michigan sweatshirt but sometimes he rebels: "Mommy! Take off my sweaty-shirt!"

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Worth the Hype: Vacuum cleaner belts

So, I feel like a total housekeeping dunce. For months I have been faithfully vacuuming 3 times a week and feeling more and more discouraged each time. I finally reached the height of frustration when my brother spilled fish food on the floor and I couldn't get the vacuum to suck it up. The hair from my postpartum balding was EVERYWHERE and I'd taken to crawling around the living room, putting my head parallel to the floor when the sun was shining in the window and picking up as many hairs as as I could see that way. I even asked a bunch of friends about their vacuum opinions - certain that I had to go and buy a new one like, yesterday. Lily has started to really crawl in the last 2 weeks and I was getting desperate. A friend graciously let me borrow her vacuum (probably so that she could put her baby on my floor when she came to visit without fear for his health) and finally it dawned on me that I had owned the vacuum for 3.5 years and I had never replaced the filter, the roller brush or the belt. Lo and Behold...the belt was broken.
I have had lots of examples of broken belts in my day - I think that my mother bought them wholesale and had bins full of them when we were little because she ALWAYS seemed to be changing them. So it is not from unfamiliarity with the problem that I suffered. I guess I just thought that MY belt would never break (don't ask me how a person can be arrogant in so many areas of their life - it must be my own special gift) and therefore blocked that solution from my mind.
So last night we switched the belt and this morning I vacuumed - for the first time in probably 3 months - it looks so great!!! Who knew?! It doesn't matter how often you vacuum if your vacuum is broken - it won't help! I was so happy that I just sat down on my couch and put my feet up and gazed with love at my clean floor. And I won't even go into the details of the hair that ended up in the filter - wow. I don't know how many more kids I'll be able to have - a few more and I'll end up looking like my husband ;).

Worth the Hype: Weight Watchers plus others

I'm done! I've finally lost the last 30 lbs that was hanging on after Lily. Now, I realize that some of you only gained 30 lbs total with your children. Well, in my dreams. This 30 was after the initial 20 lbs were shed. And the sad part is that I was so excited to "only" gain 50 lbs with her because with Moses I gained (doo, doo, doo) 70 lbs. Seven-O pounds. That pregnancy increased my overall weight by roughly 70% - nearly doubled my weight in 9 months. Ouch. Literally.
Now, the question you may be asking is, what the heck does she eat while pregnant? While I occasionally had a bout of 1/2 a carton of chocolate ice cream, or, say, a whole pumpkin pie, solo, by noon - I can count those occasions on, well, on 2 fingers because it happened those two times. So, I don't really know. It's a little distressing to gain that much and a little more distressing to work my butt off for 8 months after having the kiddo in order to get back to feeling like myself. Truth be told, I'm not at my pre-pregnancy weight - I'm just at a weight that I arbitrarily set for myself as a good weight for me to be. OK, not so arbitrarily, I did use the BMI chart and pictures of myself at different weights to decide.
So, I wanted to tip the hat to Weight Watchers, Outsmarting the Female Fat Cell, and Strong Women Stay Thin. I just ordered the Weight Watchers materials (core food guide, dining out guide, and point calculator) from ebay and did it on my own. I really liked that they have a point adjustment for nursing mothers - a guilt-free way to "diet"/"control portions" and nurse! And I just love the other two books, Outsmarting and Strong Women, they really keep the health perspective at the forefront and help me to not get caught up in vanity and over-concern with looking skinny. Also, they are really big on the tremendous job a women's body just did to grow a baby and how it needs some TLC during recovery while at the same time offering a kick in the butt to get back into shape eventually. They don't expect you to be near your goal until 8 or 9 months so, I'm right on track according to them :). Anyway, I've been waiting for 8 months to write this post so here it is!!! Maybe I'll add picture later today...let you in on my shame and my triumph :) Yea! Guilt-free eggnog!

Getting home on time

I was on a plane yesterday flying from Kansas City to Chicago and saw a man die. It was so awful, so, so awful. He walked onto the plane and I commented to David that he looked like Kramer from Seinfeld but with giant glasses. He looked about 45 years old. He was 4 rows in front of us and 15 minutes into our 1 hour flight the people next to him called the stewardess who was running the beverage service. He looked like he was having a mild seizure and then he went limp. There was all sorts of running around and they pulled him into the aisle and laid him down right in front of us. A doctor and a couple paramedics who happened to be on the flight shocked him a few times and did CPR for the rest of the eternally long flight. Everybody was crossing themselves and the stewardesses were crying and counting to 10 over and over for the paramedics. It looked just like a scene from ER except there were people crawling over each other and over seats to get passed the dying man and pass the defibrillator to the doctor or pass the oxygen tank or more gloves.
Obviously we had priority landing at the nearest airport and we were, "flying at maximum speed due to a medical emergency", but he didn't respond to the CPR for at least 30 minutes. He just passed on, right there in front of us. A stranger to everyone on that plane. It was awful, so awful.
They took him out on a stretcher and then the captain turned off the fasten-seatbelt sign and we all got up, took down our carry-on luggage and dispersed into the terminal. And that was it. Nobody said anything, nobody said a prayer or blessed the body...we all just went about our business. David and I caught our connection (which we probably would have missed if we hadn't had priority landing). Nothing changed. We weren't even inconvenienced by this man's passing. I desperately wanted to miss our flight. Or to have to stay in Chicago overnight -maybe be stuck on the plane extra long. I wanted my bags to be lost. Anything, anything to mark the passing of that stranger. It was awful, so awful to just walk to our gate, stand in line at the McDonald's, eat Chicken Nuggets, board the plane and get home on-time. A man died and I caught my flight.

May the soul of that faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace...

Nannies *updated*

For the long nights you lay awake
And watched for my unworthy sake:
For your most comfortable hand
That led me through uneven land:
For all the storybooks you read:
For all the pains you comforted:
For all you pitied, all you bore,
In sad and happy times of yore:
My second mother, my first wife,
The angel of my infant life -
From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!
- Robert Louis Stevenson

I just came across this section about nannies in a book I'm reading and it has brought me a whole new appreciation for the fact that my kids get a mommy and not a nanny, or worse, a daycare center. Thank goodness we live in the time that we live in - not that I'd mind having an extra set of hands around occasionally to help with the nitty-gritty of mommying - but when it comes down to it, even the nitty-gritty of discipline, healthy feeding, diapering, cleaning, etc. is bonding me to my kids in a very deep and powerful way. When you serve someone your love for them and your ability to see Christ in them deepens.
I'm so grateful to be living in a time where moms can be moms and don't need to leave that up to the hired help. Here's a part of the description of the relationship between a child and his nanny during the hight of Victorian England's household structure. This description reminded me so much of the relationship between all the children and Nanny in Brideshead Revisited. I guess you could make the argument that in that tale it was the faith of Nanny, quietly praying on her beads, that gave the example which served as the "twitch upon the thread" more then their heroically virtuous and somewhat intrusive mother. Who knows...just a thought for those of you who have read or watched Brideshead.

[Gawthorne-Hardy] speaks of grown men who remained stoically dry-eyed when
discussing the deaths of their mothers, but who dissolved into tears when
discussing their nannies. On visits home such men frequently dashed past the
drawing room where their parents sat waiting and tore up three flights of stairs
to visit Nanny in her nursery. It was common for public school boys, sent off at
the age of seven, to cry not for their mothers, but for their nannies, who
tended to mourn their charges' departure as they would a death.

Yea 21st century! I'm glad I wasn't raising kids 100 years ago, or rather, not raising them.


(quote taken from To Hell with All That - Loving and Loathing our Inner Housewife, by Caitlin Flanagan)

What? Russian?

Your Inner European is Russian!

Mysterious and exotic.You've got a great balance of danger and allure.

Who's" Your Inner European?

Alia is the Russian

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated.You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's" Your Inner European?

David is the Frenchie

Thanks Maria.

My Boy

The quotable Mo

At Mass, looking through the cryroom window during the consecration:

I see the Lord! [Wow, I think to myself. I'm raising a mystic.] Look, the Lord is praying!

I like Grandma. She's a fun, fun, fun, fun kid. No. She's a fun, fun, fun, fun muvver.

Me: You know what Moses? My throat hurts.

Moses: Oh mommy. You want me to rub it?

On the way home from a Halloween Party.

David: You spent a lot of time with ____.

Me: Yeah, I invited her and she didn't know many people

Moses: I invited her, too.

Me: I met her on the Women's Retreat.

Moses: I met her on retreat, too.

*sreeeech*

Moses: What was that?

Me: I forgot about the stop sign and I had to stop quickly!

Moses: I had to stop quickly too...........(long pause).............it was your fault mommy.

Moses: Mom! There's a Haro-o-opter.

Me: Oh! You're right - there's a helipcopter!

Moses: No! It's a Harold-the-copter! [who knew Harold's last name was copter?]