One.
I am so grateful for all the prayers that came my way when I was freaking out at the beginning of the week. In retrospect, my reaction to what was going on in my life seems now overblown, but at the time it seemed like too much to deal with. Which just goes to show how very weak we are when God withdraws from us for even an instant. Which is why, most certainly, He occasionally does it.
Two.
We have a new piggy, and we have not yet dispatched the old one. "Spotty" will meet her destiny (in the form of the butcher) in January. Our new gilt (female unbred pig) is Sue Ann, which was Arnold the pig's girlfriend in an episode of Green Acres. I prefer to stick to food-related names. In the past we've had Porky, O.P. (Organic Pork), Yum-Yum and Francis Bacon. I would have called this one Dinner.
Three.
I am so enjoying Gemma! Well, okay--a bit less at 9:30 when I am aching for sleep and she is fussy and wiggly in bed. But all in all she is very much like Una was--very easy, sitting happily in the bouncy seat during school, smiling a great deal. I get a lump in my throat thinking about how quickly she is getting big.
Four.
In the middle of our family Rosary, Una took out a hairbrush and began brushing my hair. Everything in me said, "Stop her--we are praying and this is not the right time to be doing anything besides meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries." But my pleasure-seeking self won out. I like having my hair brushed better than a back-rub. And almost as well as chocolate. I know, I could have told her to do this after the Rosary, but I didn't.
Miserere nobis...
Five.
The nicest thing I've heard all day? Sebastian, snuggling beside me on the sofa got up, gave me a big kiss on the cheek and said, "I'm just going to get a drink, and then I'm coming back to snuggle some more."
Six.
The Two Towers is playing out in the living room. It's much beloved here, but not often viewed due to the length of it. It is always a perplexing thing to me, how my kids can watch the orks and uruk-hai and Golem without a problem, but be afraid of the witch in Snow White, or the Child-Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Go figure.
Seven.
It's nearly nine o'clock and I just put Gemma in her cot. I am going to see if she will sleep in it tonight--or, rather, part of tonight, so that I may have a few hours without her tucked under one of my arms. I am getting a permanent crick in my neck, and I seem to have more of me in the co-sleeper on most nights than she does. Did I say it was nearly nine? Time for me to shut this thing down and go to bed (or knit a bit first). G'night!
(Oh, and if you haven't already, check out some other Quick Takes on Jennifer's Conversion Diary)
1. you changed your header-it looks great!
ReplyDelete2. reactions always seem out of proportion after you've had one. i guess that's why it is good to let off some steam once in a while.
3. that hairbrushing stint made me teary-eyed. what a sweet girl. and i don't think God minds about things like that nearly as much as we do.
4. knit for a bit...that has a good rhyme to it. hope you had a chance to do just that!
I had a conversation with a priest once, I was trying to convince him to cut out all the extra announcements and extended dance versions of the music because every Mass at that parish was about an hour and a half long and it was a bit much for small children (and nonCatholic husbands) and the best help I'd had from the deacon was to tell me I didn't have to come on Sundays if it was a burden (he was trying to be nice).
ReplyDeleteSo he said, essentially, that if I were really a good holy Catholic I'd want Mass to last as long as possible, and told me the story of when he was a kid and he and his brother would run to the table saying the grace as quickly as possible, it had become a game, and his father quickly cracked down on that and made sure they were solemn.
So I immediately went home and encouraged my kids in an Our Father race.
I think there should be reverence, and there is a place for silence and for concentration, all that. But I don't know where we got the idea that we have to sit in a pious pose and do nothing but pray. The rosary, I've read, was given to the people because they were in the fields and they needed prayers they could do while they were working instead of throwing it all aside and going in to Vespers. I think your daughter has it just right, and I think you've got it just right, and you guys are saying a lot more rosaries than my family and probably brushing hair more than my family is so good on ya.