Yarn Along

Knitting:  I'm still working on the same scarf, which is going surprisingly quickly.  I hope to have it done in another week or two.

Reading:  I've been reading an interesting book (Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day) I received as a Christmas gift this year, and I'm almost ready to give the bread a try.

Moments of Grace

One of Lucy and Linus' Christmas gifts was a nice, sturdy holy water font to be hung where they can reach it.  We've been practicing making the Sign of the Cross.  I guide Linus' hand, saying "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost... "
I pause for a moment, and with great enthusiasm he says,  "AAMMM."

I think it's pretty much the cutest thing ever.  But then, he's my son, and I think he's pretty much the cutest thing ever.  I might be biased.

Today

In the bath ...
Lucy:  "Shhh!  The priest is singing, Linus!"

While putting Linus down for a nap ...
Linus:   "A sheep.  Baa baa baa baa baa."

Playing with Suds

I have discovered an easy and efficient way to make suds for my little ones to play with.  I put warm water with soap in a jar, put the lid on, and shake.  I use a spoon to transfer the suds to the play sink.  For more suds, just shake again.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

A crown, platter, glasses, and lantern are all ready to celebrate the feast of St. Lucy.  We had Lussekatter and hot chocolate.  Neither of my children ate the Lussekatter, but at least Linus enjoyed the chocolate milk.

Lucy and Linus with their Grandma in the tent she made for them.  It fits over a card table.  When we set it up, Linus was fussing a little bit and wanted to be held.  Grandma went in to demonstrate, and Lucy quickly followed.  Linus saw this, stopped fussing, said, "Uh-huh!" and wiggled to be put down.  It remains one of his favorite places to play.

While Grandma and Grandpa were here, we visited the local zoo.  While the monkeys were not out, the cats were unusually active, which was fun to see.

One day while playing with blocks, Lucy quite spontaneously picked up these two blocks and said, "Look Mama, got my camera.  Take a picture."

Yarn Along

Reading:  Teaching Montessori in the Home:  the Preschool Years, by Elizabeth G. Hainstock.

Knitting:  A scarf with a leaf lace pattern (as you can see, I made a couple modifications to suit my own taste), from some lovely cotton yarn which my dear husband brought home on the feast of St. Raphael (the anniversary of the day he proposed).

I'm loving both.

Go visit Ginny for more knitting and reading.

Feast of All Saints

I'm reposting this from 2010, just to remind everyone of the plenary indulgences available.  We made our visit to the cemetery today.  Did you?

O almighty, everlasting God, who hast granted us to venerate in one solemnity the merits of all thy saints; we beseech thee, that as our intercessors are multiplied, thou wouldst bestow upon us the desired abundance of thy mercy. 
               Collect from the Feast of All Saints

With so many to pray for us, let us not forget to pray for the dead.  All this week (November 1st through 8th), "a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory, is granted to the faithful who ... devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed."  (from the current Manual of Indulgences)  It is also necessary to be free from attachment to any sin, receive a sacramental confession, communion, and pray for the intentions of the Pope. 

The document The Gift of the Indulgence states that it is sufficient to have made a sacramental confession "within several days (about 20)" before or after doing the prescribed work.  This is much more generous than the old requirement of "within the octave" and this permission is still in effect (not only for the Jubilee year).

Since the church is so generous, let us not fail to send this abundance of mercy to the aid of the poor souls in purgatory.

Counting my Blessings

Because today has been one of those days, today I will count my blessings.
Tonight I am grateful for:

1.  A husband who, upon coming home and seeing me looking a bit frazzled, says, "I love you."

2.  Two beautiful, healthy children.

3.  The way Linus sees me, and, giggling excitedly, toddle-runs toward me with both arms out to come and get a hug.

4.  Lucy's excitement about drawing an "O."  Her crayon makes two rounds when she does this.

5.  Two little ones who love books and trips to the library.

6.  The way Linus, upon encountering a closed door, reaches up, standing on tiptoe, touches the doorknob and says "Go.  Go."

7.  The fact that the most insistent demand Lucy usually makes is "Read.  A book."

Moments of Grace

At the Park {PHFR}

{Pretty} and {Funny}

We went to a local park the other day, and my pretty little girl was making quite the fashion statement.  She looked a bit more put together at the beginning of the day, but she knows how to take off her skirt and put on another one, and that is just what she did.  And she added the big, pink, floppy hat just for good measure.

{Happy}

We saw ducks.  Lucy is really interested in ducks.  We play with ducks in the bath.  We read stories about ducks.  We even sleep with a stuffed duck some nights.  She was happy.

There a quite a number of birds that look like this at our park (it is a bird sanctuary).  They are they ugliest ducks I have ever seen.  I might have been known to refer to them as "Franken-ducks."  Maybe.

The most exciting part?  There are black swans, and they have a nest right next to the board walk over the lake/swamp area, so we have a great view of everything happening.

The two swans were working on the nest when we passed by.

I was fascinated.  Lucy was convinced that the mama swan was going to eat those eggs (that's what you do with eggs, right?).

{Real}

All snuggled up on top of the eggs.  Alas, the litter spoils this view.

And on a happier note, we saw a pelican!  I don't think we've seen a pelican there before.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

How a Baby Prays

Lucy, lately, wants to do everything I do.  When I fold laundry, she wants to fold laundry (she takes an item out of the basket, wads it up, and carefully sets it on the bed).  When I wash dishes, she wants to wash dishes.  When I pray, she imitates me.  She finds a little book, kneels or stands or sits, and babbles in the tone of voice I usually use for reciting the Divine Office.

It had a flash of insight the other day, as she was doing this.  In the Sacrament of Baptism, the intention to "do what the Church does" is sufficient for a nonbeliever to validly perform the Sacrament.  In a similar way does it not stand to reason that the prayers of a toddler "doing what Mommy does" would be acceptable to God?

Just a thought for Moments of Grace this week.

Singing Along

My husband came out of Lucy's room last night saying, "We had a mommy-blog moment."

As part of the bedtime routine, they sing the Salve Regina.  Lucy sings along with many songs.  Mostly this is babytalk-mumbling, but whenever there is a word she knows, she chimes in loudly with that word.

So my husband was singing along "Salve regina, mater misericordiae ..."  And Lucy was singing along in her usual babytalk-mumble.  My husband was wondering what words she could possibly know, given that this song is in Latin.

"Ad te suspira -"

"MOOSE!" Lucy chimed in, and my husband got the giggles so that he couldn't continue singing.

In the Background

Image from Wikimedia Commons
Miniature by an unknown artist, about 1470.

This morning during breakfast, Lucy and her daddy were looking at and describing the pictures in No Roses for Harry.  There is a framed picture of a church on the wall in the background on one of the pages.  Daddy pointed to it and asked, "What's that?"

"Priest." (We respond to general topic areas, not specific questions)

"A priest is not a building.  What do we call the building?"

"Host!  Priest hold up a host!"  Lucy pantomimed the elevation.  (What ... you expected a two-year-old to directly answer the question?  Maybe yours does that.  Not mine.)

After a few more tries to elicit the response, "Church," Daddy and I both got the giggles.  He looked at me and said, "At two years old, if her description of Mass is 'the priest holds up the Host,' I'd say we're off to a pretty good start."

Going Back to Fix

I have played piano from the time I was a very little girl, and my grandmother was my piano teacher.  "Don't go back to fix!" my grandmother told me over and over.  "Don't go back to fix!" my mother would call from the other room as I was practicing.  Like many other beginning musicians, when I made a mistake I would stop and search for the right note instead of going on.  This destroys all sense of the rhythm of the music and makes the error more obvious.

I have been thinking about doing things at the right time lately, and I may have discovered the reason my efforts to make a schedule for myself have failed.  I "go back to fix."  If for one reason or another, I haven't done something at its proper time, I try to rush and do it now, before the thing I ought to do now.  This destroys the rhythm of the day, and makes me feel rushed and frustrated.  The last couple days I made a decision that, if I discovered that I had missed something on my schedule, then I would go on with what I should be doing now and pick up the missed thing if I had some extra time later.

The schedule (since someone will ask) consists of the hours of the Divine Office, everyone's mealtimes (of which there are many), laundry, dishes, other necessary chores, exercise for me, naptime, and some time for the little ones to have Mama's undivided attention.  I'm still tweaking things a little bit -- I'm trying to figure out when to feed Linus so that he's hungry enough to eat, but not crying for his next meal.  The last couple days have been very peaceful, and seemed to fly by.

Linking up with Moments of Grace at Suscipio

Reading

... But in time he forgot what it was that he had wanted a week longer for.  If he worried at all after that, it was about his jobs at the hospital.  He planned them out, thinking how quickly he could stop that board creaking, or rehang that door, or mend that table-leg.  Probably he really became rather useful, though no one ever told him so.  But that, of course, cannot have been the reason why they kept the poor man so long. They may have been waiting for him to get better, and judging 'better' by some odd medical standard of their own.

At any rate, poor Niggle got no pleasure out of life, not what he had been used to call pleasure.  He was certainly not amused.  But it could not be denied that he began to have a feeling of -- well satisfaction:  bread rather than jam.  He could take up a task the moment one bell rang, and lay it aside promptly the moment the next one went, all tidy and ready to be continued at the right time.  He got through quite a lot in a day, now; he finished small things off neatly.  He had no 'time of his own' (except alone in his bed-cell), and yet he was becoming master of his time; he began to know just what he could do with it.  There was no sense of rush.  He was quieter inside now, and at resting-time he could really rest.

Leaf by Niggle by J. R. R. Tolkien

This section appears to be about a particular stage of purgatory, after the regrets have quieted.  I find it very interesting that Tolkien paints this bit as decidedly monastic and devoted to learning the proper use of time.  There promises to be lots to think about in this story ...

A New Skirt

On the day that threatened to turn into a disaster, I decided that it would be good for my mental health to do some sewing.  This is the result:  a full circle skirt for Lucy.

 Here it is all spread out, because it amuses the mathematician in me to see the geometric qualities of a skirt.

 All the seams are neatly finished on the inside -- mostly flat-felled seams, and a french seam to attach the top portion.

The recipient is delighted with it.  When I asked her if she wanted to try it on, she immediately took off the skirt she was wearing to put this one on.

Since I'm linking this post up at Needle and thREAD, here is one of the books I'm currently reading.  The title (under that inconveniently place library sticker) is Writing Picture Books.  With all the picture books we read around here, I sometimes daydream about writing one.  It would help, of course, to have an actual story idea ...   But unrealistic as my reasons for reading it may be, it has been an enjoyable read so far.

Yarn Along

I've been knitting a top-down pullover for me.  I'm hoping to use up most of the cotton yarn I have in my stash and make something useful out of it.  I don't have much more to say about it right now, except that the Norwegian purl (with yarn in back) is a lifesaver for knit one purl one ribbing.

Tales from the Perilous Realm is a collection of short stories and poems by J. R. R. Tolkien.  It's been thoroughly enjoyable light reading so far.

How to Reboot the Morning

The night wakings last night tested the limits of my patience and physical endurance, and I got up to two cranky babies who wouldn't eat breakfast.  We went through the morning tasks:  changed diapers, got dressed, eventually ate breakfast.  But I was still feeling tired, cross, and crabby.  After I heard myself snap at each of them in turn, I took a deep breath and said, "Let's go into the other room, say some prayers, and see if we can reboot the morning."

I said the Guardian Angel prayer, a morning offering, and then began Lauds.  By some miracle, Lucy and Linus both played happily nearby.  When I got to the antiphon for Psalm 50, I stopped and stared.

"With a generous spirit strengthen me, O God."
Yes, God.  That is what I need.  Give me strength and generosity
to get through the day.

I can't say the rest of the day was perfect, but it was better.  I was still tired, and my nerves were still a bit raw, but I regained my equilibrium and my purpose.

Of course, I'm also praying for babies who sleep tonight ...

Moments of Grace

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

A quick look at some of the fun we've had lately:

Lucy's first french braid.

Lucy had a sandwich for lunch, and so did her baby.

Linus will walk soon.  He's practicing.

Mama and Lucy had a tea party with apple slices and raspberry tea.  We even
managed to keep Linus from pulling the tablecloth off the table.

Ring Slings and Head Coverings

Veils and a hat in the Rogation Procession at Our Lady of
Clear Creek Monastery.

We arrived at Sunday Mass, a couple weeks ago.  I picked up the avalanche of toys Linus had thrown into the space between his carseat and the car door, tossing them back into the middle of the back seat when I will be able to reach them to give to him on the way home.  I unfasten Linus from his seat, pick him up, swing the diaper bag over my shoulder, reach into the outside pocket and find ...

Nothing.

I left my chapel veil at home.  I have been Catholic for eight years (all my "adult" life; I was received into the Church on my twenty-first birthday) and have worn a veil (or hat, or scarf, if I felt the veil might draw unwanted attention) all of that time.  I am acutely uncomfortable without one.

We went into the church and I checked the table by the door, where a basket of chapel veils often sits for those women who don't own one or, like me, forgot.  Not that day.

As I genuflect and get settled in the pew with Linus and Lucy and the diaper bag and their prayer books and holy cards, my husband whispers, "Is there anything in the diaper bag you could use?"  I shake my head.

I stand, holding Linus, during the Asperges, feeling the color rising in my cheeks, going over the contents of the diaper bag in my mind.  Nursing cover?  No, it has that helpful bit of boning, and it's far to brightly colored.  The ring sling is like a big shawl, and a nice unobtrusive khaki colored linen, but if I unthreaded it, the rings would jingle.  I was just pondering asking for my husband's handkerchief to tie over my hair, when I realized that I could pull the sling on through the rings, and then wrap it around my head and shoulders so that they would be mostly hidden.  I fumbled with it one-handed for a couple minutes, and by the Confiteor, had it settled and began to relax.

Not ten minutes later, my husband gave me look somewhere between panic and annoyance, while Lucy whispered "Poo-poo."  "I'll take her after the Gospel," I whispered.

As I took care of the diaper situation, I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror.  That's actually not half bad, I thought, and finally stopped worrying about my improvised shawl.  Later that day, my husband informed me that he was both amused and edified by my creative use of a ring sling.