Unbelievable

I'm not sure what's harder for me to believe.

The fact that I have two kids

or the fact that I live in Florida.

Four Quick Takes

-1-

I love the library. I think it's one thing our government is actually doing right. I love the free, once a week storytime (although I don't love the overly excited librarian leading it who can't sing looby loo the right way, but what can ya do?). I love the books for sale for only 25 cents. I love reserving books online and having them all ready for me when I get there. The library makes me feel like a better mom. I'm getting the kids out of the house, interacting with other kids, reading (obviously), and not spending a dime. Win x 4.

-2-

Bonnie introduced me to these The Lizzy Bennet Diaries. YouTube videos of a modern take on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. They are awesome. They suck you in and since they're only about three minutes long, you find yourself saying, "just one more," about a dozen times before you can tear yourself away. But I admit, I've only actually read the first few chapters of Pride and Prejudice. I had a hard time getting used to the writing style and just wasn't that into it. I know, I know. That makes me a huge literary loser and I feel like a giant failure because I don't love Miss Austen. But, BUT, I'm going to do my best to read the whole thing just so I can watch the YouTube videos and get all the references. Because they definitely stopped being as funny when I couldn't catch all the inside humor.

And because if I watch the entire series without reading the actual book, some of my friends just might disown me. Well, probably just Haley. But I don't want that happening.

-3-

I'm not sure when all that reading is actually going to take place because I feel like there are never enough hours in the day to do everything I need and want to do. Not enough time for even half the things I want to accomplish! By the time both kids are in bed we only have about two hours of evening if we want to get to bed at a decent time (which never happens). How is two hours enough time to read and pay bills and do dishes and order stuff from amazon and cut Ted's hair and print off pictures for frames and plan meals and make grocery lists and make a snack and spend quality time with my husband and and and and. Surely I'm not the only one who feels this way. Maybe it will change when my oldest isn't two and I can actually accomplish something in during a time of day that isn't naptime? Maybe?

-4-

Speaking of never having enough time in the evening...I finished the entire  second season of Once Upon a Time in only 13 days. So I guess I'm just a huge hyprocrite about not having enough time in the evening. But at least when I watch TV I can fold laundry and eat. So really it's making me even more productive. And I guess it goes to show me that if I want to do something badly enough, I'll find time for it.

Anyone else love the show? I know the acting isn't great and some of the plots are a little far fetched, but I can't help but absolutely love it. I just love all twists and backgrounds on the fairy tale characters.

-5-7-

I am so tired. So very tired. It's 8:14.

I Want to Stop and Say Hi to Jesus

The great post by Elizabeth about praying a rosary with her toddler that I mentioned yesterday led me to reading this series about the catechesis of young children. Go read it. (here, here, and here)

A mind-blowing excerpt, written as she is explaining that we don't need to give our children a relationship with God, they already have one from before they were born. We merely need to help them develop it. She writes,

Just as when he learns to say “mama” my son is merely giving a voice to that which he already knew from the moment of his birth, speaking a name for that person whose voice and smell he recognized in his first moments in the outside world, so too with the name Jesus. I was merely giving him a name for something he already knew, showing him a sign and helping him put a face to a presence that he already had a relationship with from the moment of his conception.

It got my wheels turning on what I'm doing to teach my children about their faith and what I need to be doing. And I automatically started criticizing myself for not doing more. Too much tv, not teaching enough prayers, never going to daily Mass, forgetting to pray in the mornings, etc etc. But as I started thinking of the things that I do do, well the list is actually quite impressive in my mind. I share, not to toot my own horn, but because...well, sharing on this blog is what I do.

Every time we drive by a church I "wave to Jesus" and tell Hannah that His body is in the church as the Eucharist. A few times we've even stopped in to say a quick (really quick) prayer before hopping back in our cars to go home.

We pray before meals. The regular prayer and a prayer for the souls in purgatory.

We have religious pictures and crucifixes up around the house. I point them out from time to time and ask her questions. "Who is that? Who does Jesus love?"

I sing hymns as lullabies and she learned all the words of the Hail Mary from my singing it at night.

We sometimes bless each other with holy water before going to bed.

We take our children to Mass, where they receive countless graces just from their presence. I whisper in her ear during the consecration, "Jesus' body. Jesus' blood."

When she asks me if I'm happy (her newest obsession) I say "Yes, who makes me happy?" and she's learned to answer with either, "Hannah," "Daddy," Paul," or "Jesus!"

We have an occasional "family movie night" when we all sit down together and watch a religious kids show, which gives us some great points to talk about and is a lot of fun.
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We have children's Bibles and read about Moses and David and the birth of Jesus, but only when she's interested because otherwise it's a fight.

We look at a picture book of our family and godparents during our nighttime prayers and say "Pray for  ___" as we flip through. (Although, for Hannah it sounds like "pay dor ___") We also say a short litany of our patron saints and she replies with "pay dor us!"


Depending on what your faith and family life is like, that may seem like a ton or it may seem like a feeble attempt at catechesis. But listing all of that out has taken me from guilt of not being good enough to teach my children to feeling pretty competent that I can actually encourage their relationships with the Lord pretty well. I know I have more to do. I know there is always room for improvement, but right now I'm feeling more up to the challenge than I am guilt and despair.

I'm up for the challenge of limiting the TV time in hopes that creative play will better develop. (but no getting rid of Netflix until I finish Once Upon a Time season two.) I'm up for the challenge of some type of toddler rosary on a daily weekly sometimes basis. I'm up for the challenge of making it to daily Mass every so often, and requiring a morning prayer before I get them out of bed, and talking about the feast days of the saints, and adding in more spontaneous prayer throughout our days. I'm up for the challenge of playing good, holy music in the car instead of giving in to whiny requests for "row row boat" for the hundredth time. I'm up for the challenge of getting even more creative with our budget so that we can buy good quality Catholic children's books that aren't in the library. I'm up for the challenge of acting like my children's religious upbringing is the single most important aspect of my parenting. (hint, because it is.)

I'm up for the challenge because I have to be. This is what I signed up for when I had kids. When I baptized them into our faith.

Today, as I tucked Hannah in for her naptime, I whispered in her ear, "God loves you so much and thinks you are soooo special," because I was feeling a little push from reading the above articles. When she woke up from her nap I heard her yelling, "Mommy! He's gone (dawn)! Where's God (Dod)?" I thought I was just the best mom in the entire world. Here I was, whispering God into her ears as she drifted off to sleep and when she woke up she was wondering where God went. I was so excited to have a conversation about the fact that we can't see God and He lives inside of us, and so on.

"God?" I clarified. "God's gone?" Her /g/ sounds like /d/ so I figured this is what she was saying.

"No mommy. Dod. Dahhhhhd. Not Dod. Where is my dod?"

She then went around looking for him. And finally stumbled upon

God.

Her frog humidifier that I moved to our room. Because her /g/ and her /f/ sound like /d/. And she can't say /r/. So "frog"="dod".

Ok, maybe she's not as holy as I had hoped. But she did allow me to give myself that pat on the back later. As we drove to the grocery store we passed by a church. She noticed it and said, "Mommy, I want stop and say hi to Desus."

I must be doing something right. Thank Dod.

Stuff and Things

Jumping from topic to topic tonight because writing a nicely organized blog post is just tooooo much work. How do people do it?? (People are really good writers, that's how. I am not one of them.I can blog, but I can't write.) Here is a sample of the thoughts in my head this week.

Sleep training is God's gift to mothers of multiple children. And I assume of mothers of one child but I wouldn't know because I coddled the hell out of Hannah and paid dearly for it. But Paul? Well this afternoon I took a perfectly happy and playful little six month old into his room, zipped him up in his blanket bag, carried him toward the crib, and he practically jumped out of my arms to get into it. Then he laid down and stayed in said crib for the next hour and forty-five minutes. Why? Because mama has worked hard to teach him how to sleep on his own. And mama needed him to nap a little earlier today because we had somewhere to be this afternoon. Thank you son. Now please, figure it out in the middle of the night. Figure.it.out.

Hannah loves to sing Ave Maria (the one that goes "Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing...." Because there are too many versions. Well, you can't have too many versions of Ave Maria I guess.) with me while we snuggle at bedtime. She calls it "Ee-mat-tu-tate Mawy" and singing it with her is just the highlight of my life right now. Precious.

Some links:

This was a really great post about finding the activities that really help you to relax. I know blogging helps me relax for all the reasons Jen mentioned (thoughts come out of my head, I feel good about recording our lives for the future, I feel accomplished for having completed something, I enjoy it) so why do I always find myself spending more time reading blog than I do writing on my own. I really enjoy reading blogs, but sometimes I feel like I wasted a bunch of time after reading and not ever getting to writing. I never feel like I wasted time after writing. So I just need to write more. And read less. And somehow get up enough self discipline to read less when I really like reading.

This was another blog post worth the read today. Elizabeth has such a way of making me want to be a better wife and mother without making me feel like a crappy wife and mother. Her way of praying the rosary with her two year old seems totally doable. So doable I'm actually considering giving it a try. Without the handmade Mystery books of course. I know my limits. And that is way beyond them.

We returned the overpriced trike because when it said it was adjustable, I didn't realize it was already on the biggest setting. And she was too big for it. So back to the store it went, even after we rode it in the street. Because I have no shame when it comes to Walmart's generous return policy. And instead of the trike I got her a real bike. Goodwill. Eight bucks. It has a bell! And she loves it.

I love it too. Especially after I peeled all the Disney Princess stickers off and made it way cuter. Shh, don't tell her.

And she's gotten so good at it in only a few days that she actually needs a helmet now. At first it was just pretending to peddle and us pushing her along but now she can all out ride. We got her helmet down from storage (that she wore exactly one time almost two years ago and hated it) and it didn't fit.

So guess who got a new Winnie the Pooh helmet. The most adorable little boy in the world, that's who.

Ted and I, in an attempt to get out of the house with the kids more often in an effort to keep from losing our minds and do fun family things, have been talking about bike riding. We borrowed a bike trailer from a friend who is trying to sell it to see if we want to buy it. Both kids loved it and now we want to take it on some of the trails around town.

Except that both of our bikes are in bad shape. Ted's is done for. And I have no idea how much mine would cost to get up to speed. I guess that's what you get since they've had to be stored outside for four of the last five years. So our little attempt at getting out of the house with the kids is quickly turning into a several hundred dollar venture. Ugh.

What are the odds of finding me and Ted new bikes at Goodwill for eight bucks? Probably less than likely than my Disney Princess steal. So this family fun idea is still in the negotiation phase.

Since we're being responsible parents and making Hannah wear a helmet (when we buy her a new one that is), we have to actually wear ours to set a good example and not be big fat hypocrites. I'm not gonna lie, I feel like a huge loser. Am I the only one who thinks helmets are just so.... uncool? I mean, protecting my head from brain injury-obviously a plus. But we never ever wore them growing up so it just feels strange now.

Helmets are important. Especially for riding with your eyes closed.

 And even though the temps were still above 90 today, I actually thought it felt pretty amazing outside. The humidity has finally let up and that subtle hint of fall is almost in the air. Like, still several hundred miles and probably another two months away kind of almost. But I was able to ride a bike down my street at 6:30 without dying. So I'm just gonna be grateful for that.

Although a Missouri fall sounds lovely right now. With leaves that actually turn colors and jackets with my jeans.

Ask me how I feel when I'm laying on the beach later this month though.

I think when you devote three paragraphs to the weather it's time to sign off.

And yes,  I know that a paragraph needs more than two sentences.

Paul's Five Favorites

Linking with Hallie again, this time to dote on my sweet Paul.

Paul Man, you are six months old today! The time flew. Faster than I ever knew time could fly. You are such a delight to your family. Here are your top five favorite things in life at your ripe old age of six months.

-1-

Me. I am the source of summit of your happiness. The term "mama's boy" has never been used more accurately to describe your love for me. It's amazing. You could be happily playing by yourself in the living room, but if you get just the tiniest glimpse of me out of the corner of your eye you must be near me. You will do anything to get in my arms. If I come home from being gone for a few hours you jump and flap and scream until I wrap you up and nurse you. And then you smile at me like this:

When you finish nursing you lay in my lamp and flap your left leg (always left) and just smile at me.

I am just as crazy about you as you are of me. And my favorite moment of every day is hearing you playing in your crib after you wake up from your nap. Then opening the door and watching you light up and wiggle all over the place because you are just so stinkin' happy to see me.

I love being your favorite.

-2-

Hannah is a close second. She makes you laugh way more than I can. But she can't nurse you. So I still win. Your love for Hannah is so beautiful. When we're in the car you just stare at her. In fact, you go weeks without ever fussing in the car, even for trips a half hour or more, because you are just so happy to sit and watch your sister.

A repeat picture, yes. It's so good it needed to be on  here twice.

Your daddy is right in line behind Hannah, but gaining ground every day. You are really getting into his roughhousing and tickling. He also makes you laugh harder than I can.

-3-

"Crawling". You've been sitting since you were four months old, pulled up for the first time at 4 1/2, and started rocking on your knees shortly after. You are all but crawling and I expect you'll do it any day now. Even though you can't crawl, you sure do get to where you want to go. It's kind of like an inchworm.  You pick yourself up onto your knees, sprawl out with a forward lunge, then shimmy back up to your knees again. Last night you got all the way across the living room to join us at the table during supper. You like being in the action.

You also like being very serious.

-4-

Food. Well just bananas really, that's the only food you've eaten so far. You act like you want to eat everything on our plates, but when we fed you some sweet potato on a spoon you got the chills and spit it out. But banana in the net feeder? Your new fave. You actually cried when I took it away to refill it today.

(You have the most gorgeous blue eyes.)

-5-

Talking. You are the babblingest six month I know. Your current repertoire consists of /b, m, bw, g, gw/ and an occasional /d/. You even combine consonants to say things like "bih-ma" or "ger-buh". It's quite impressive. You love to slap your hand across your mouth and listen to the way it changes your sounds. And you say everything with such purpose. Like you're really trying to tell me something. 

Picture taken mid babble

We love you Doodle. Thanks for adding so much joy to our family.

Quick Takes (with a giveaway!)

Joining Jen with a way too long quick takes today.

-1-

Would you like to join me for an exercise in self control? Go get some of this. Then set it on your counter. And tell yourself to only eat one slice per day. Can't do it? How about one slice per hour? No, that's too hard too? Then just do whatever you can to keep from eating the entire bag in ten minutes and reward your amazing iron will by....finishing off the entire bag. Then feel really guilty because that one pound cost five bucks.

Dried mango. It's so freaking good. A story to illustrate:

A few months ago Karen and Lauren came to visit. Funnest. weekend. ever. To divy up the food responsibilities, Karen offered to bring the alcohol (naturally) and Lauren offered to make a "decadent dessert". Well, since she has two kids and had to drive three hours to get to me, the dessert didn't get made. What did she do instead? She picked up three bags of dried mango. And then told me and Karen that it would be one of the best things we'd ever eaten and that we wouldn't even mind that she didn't make double fudged stuffed brownies with oreo topping and caramel sauce from scratch. And we looked at her like she was insane.

And then we ate the dried mango. And now we call it mango crack. And now I trust anything Lauren says.

-2-

Speaking of mango, can we talk about food allergies for a second? Or sensitivities would probably be a better word if you care about which words I use to describe food allergies sensitivities. I admit, I was one of the top skeptics when it came to the everyone-is-allergic-to-something-and-gluten-is-killing-us-all world we live in now. I honestly just didn't believe people when they told me their kids had all these allergies and that such and such food would make them sick. Now that Hannah and Paul both can't have dairy (which means no dairy for me while nursing. None. Not even a food with sodium caseinate listed as the 19th ingredient.) I'm obviously a believer. But now, it's gotten even worse.

I've jumped on the gluten bandwagon. And I don't know if I'll ever be able get off. To make a long and boring story short, I can't eat gluten if I want to feel decent. Now, if I want to feel bloated and miserable and lethargic everyday, then I can chow down on those cinnamon rolls and even allow a little flour in my soup as a thickener. But I don't want to feel like that. So I can't eat gluten. Or dairy. And that sucks.

I remember (this is where the mango comes in) a friend I used to work with (who had Celiac, thus couldn't have gluten) told me that after so long without it she could actually find pleasure in just smelling a loaf of bread or a brownie. That she didn't even have to taste it to enjoy it. She also thought frozen mango was about the best "dessert" on the planet. Holly, I admit I thought you were a bit crazy. Now I totally get you. Brownies smell great. And smelling them is way better than eating them and feeling like crap. And well, I just devoted an entire quick take to mango. So I guess that makes me a food sensitivity loser.

-3-

While we're on the topic of food, could you sweet readers help me out? I've been pretty much perpetually hungry since Paul was born. Nursing a 19 pound five month old and not being able to eat 80% of the food on the grocery store shelves will do that too you. I need snack ideas!!! And I need them bad. I might actually die if I eat any more almonds. Or peanut butter straight from the jar. Or hummus. Please, please, please! What else is there?

What are some snack ideas that fit all of the following categories?

a) Does not contain any gluten or dairy. Not even a trace.

b) Is edible (preferably yummy, but I'll settle for edible).

c) Will help me actually feel full/Is high in protein.

d) Doesn't involve more than six second of prep time.

e) Doesn't cost the equivalent of an entire bag of dried mango.

What's that you say? It doesn't exist. Well I guess I'll settle for 4 out of 5. Just help!

-4-

Is this post already too long? I better skip #4.

-5-

How about some Hannah quotes? Our best friends in town just had their first baby, an adorable and precious and sweet little girl named Ruth.

Hannah's in love. She talks about "Woof" all day long. Like yesterday, for example:

H, while crawling around and roaring: I a lion. You a tiger.

Me: And what's Paul?

H: He's baby Woof!

H, while watching two squirrels run around the backyard: Mommy look ("yut")! Two squirrels!

Me: Wow! I see them. Do you think they're friends?

H: No mommy. Not friends. Just squirrels.

And her response when she saw Paul's spit up all over the kitchen floor?

Mommy look! Paul made a smile face!

-6-

In a slight change from pictures of breast milk vomit, How would you like to completely change someone's life for the better and win a free purse while doing it? I've talked about my talented sister-in-law Kate on here before. She really is amazing. Better than Martha Stewart (and without that awkward topless sketch she did for Saturday Night Live. Or the jail time.)

She can do everything from flowers to party decorations to interior design to sewing. And man can she sew. Take a look at some of my favorites from her Etsy shop.

And she does custom bride and bridesmaid stuff for weddings. Like this.

Because she's amazing.

And she's offered to give away one of her purses from her K8 Made shop just because I asked her to! And now the life changing part. Kate entered a contest (by none other than Martha Stewart herself....) to try to win $10,000 to be used to grow her business. She wants to turn her hobby into a full time job and I really, really, really want her to get this.

So follow the rafflecopter rules below and enter to win the purse of your choosing (excluding diaper bags, but they're awesome so you should just buy one). Setting up an account to vote was fast and easy and I haven't received one single piece of spam. You're not obligated to vote for K8 Made, obviously. Vote for anyone you want. (But seriously, her purses are the best, soooo......) Then go back and vote six times a day to help make someone's dreams come true.

-7-

If you want an extra 5,000,000* chances to win, leave a comment with a snack idea that meets all my above criteria. Come on, do Ted a favor and help me stop complaining about being hungry all the time.

And dangit I can't figure out how to do the links in Rafflecopter for the life of me. You'll have to copy paste. I'm a blogging giveaway failure.

*those are just pretend entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hannah's Five Favorites

Linking up with Hallie with a little twist on Five Favorites.

-1-

Fishing with Daddy. 

Ted took her out on the boat for the first time to catch some bluegill ("boo dill") and she loved it. We packed tons of snacks but she hardly touched them. She was that excited about fishing. They fished for about an hour and a half. She handed Ted worms, held the rod, and even reeled in her own fish. I'm not sure which of them had more fun.

Come to think of it, I had the most fun. An entire Saturday morning in the house with a napping baby and time to do whatever I wanted. I think Saturday morning fishing trips need to be a regular occurrence.

-2-

This:

Making a bed for a statue of Mary out of our box set of Lord of the Rings. Very weird. But she loves it.

-3-

Her brother.

Yes, she still kicks him in the head occasionally, but for the most part she really, really loves him. She tells him what she sees out the window while we're driving. She makes him laugh just by looking at him. When her leapfrog laptop asks her, "Hannah, who is your best friend?" she almost always answers, "Paul," and I melt every single time with the adorableness of their sibling love. I think she generally enjoys having him around. Maybe "favorite" is a strong word, but he's definitely loved.

-4-

Her turtles.

Obsessed. They were a shower gift from some sweet Mississippi friends and she has loved them since she first laid eyes on them. They snap together and play music. When she was younger she would make us chase her around the house with them over and over and over again. They kept getting "lost" to give us a needed turtle respite, but somehow she always manages to find them. They make a reappearance every few weeks and she enters back into turtle heaven. This week's game is to try to pull them along the top of the couch without them falling off. As you can see, she's super successful.

-5-

Laundry.

This favorite really should occupy all five spots of the Five Favorites post. She loves to fold laundry. Loves it. "I dold yawnee?" she asks all day long. And she's actually quite good at it. She knows what clothes goes in which piles and she's very picky about laying them out flat and in the proper direction. Putting them away isn't so much a favorite, but we're working on it. She even requests to take all the clothes out of her and Paul's drawers and sort them.

And if someone sends some hand-me-downs over? Well she'll be busy for a good forty minutes.

Pile of clothes sitting by the door for Ted to take out and put in storage? Don't worry, she'll make sure it's neat and organized before being thrown haphazardly into a giant tub.

Those are Hannah's five favorites for this week. Who knows what she'll come up with next though.