Welcome Aboard

Last weekend Bill and I became Godparents to this little cutie.  Meet Eric William:

Bill's brother Mike and his wife Amy are the proud parents.

And that's not all.....Meet Eric's brother Jason Patrick:

 

In this picture with us is Bill's sister Kate and her husband Steve - Jason's Godparents. 

Here are the happy parents with Gran and Gramps.

Mike and Amy also have little boy Michael who is 2 1/2 years old.
Needless to say,  Amy and Mike are quite busy with their crew!

I don't know how she does it, but she does it with style and grace.

Uncle John was the officiate.  He also happens to be Mike's Godfather.

This is the matriarch and proud great-grand mom, Mom-Mom.

Looking at her during the baptism was what started the tears welling up in my eyes.

~The woman who had 8 children.  I wondered what she was thinking.  I watched in awe thinking about the years of wisdom she has.  I thought of how proud she must be in seeing her family grow and watching her son, a priest, baptize another member of the Catholic Church.

~I thought about my sister in law, Kate as we became godmothers together for these twins.  We became parents ourselves within a year of each other and had many conversations about new motherhood; and now here we were as the more "seasoned" mothers.

~I thought about how lucky I was to inherit younger siblings when I married Bill. (I am the youngest in my own family).  I am enjoying the process of seeing them live out their lives, getting married, growing families, etc.

As I get older, those tears come a lot easier, and a lot of times it is because of flowing thoughts like the ones I listed above.

I am so thankful for days like this to celebrate life and family.  They are the best days ever!

To steal a closing phrase from Uncle John after all of his baptisms.....

 "Welcome Aboard Eric and Jason!"

We love you!

Wordless Wednesday

Out Of The Mouth Of.......

Matthew:

 

Driving along in the car today I told Matt that it was his Grand-mom's birthday.

 Matt: How old is she?

Me:  If she were here, she would be 74.

Matt: Where is she?

Me: Heaven.

Matt:  I think Heaven is yellow, like the sun.  And there are big magical beds you can sit on and lay on.

After a short pause,

Oh, and there's a kitchen.


To me, this was a good idea of Heaven.... My Mom, sunshine, sleep, and food.

Lord, help me to Heaven.

R.I.P. Whooey

We named the raccoon in our yard Whooey.

The police and Game Preserve people told me it was really no big deal about him being there, and that racoons are not totally nocturnal.  If I wanted to get rid of him, I'd have to call a private nuisance control company to deal with him.

We enjoyed watching him sleep in his little nook up in the tree during our dinner, and even late last night as he watched me take out the trash. 

This morning though, we were sad to see he had died.

Rest in Peace Whooey.

Oh, and Bill, there is a shovel and a wheel barrow waiting for you to deal with this when you get home.
 *smile*

A Day In The Life....

Woke up this morning with Billy telling me there was a huge raccoon in the back yard.  The sun was already up, so I was concerned about it being rabid.  It was walking like a drunkard and heading close to our back door.  Scary.

 I took a few extra minutes figuring out how to get me and Mary Kate to the car so I could drive her to school.  Those few minutes cost me considerably because every school bus magically appears after that and traffic gets a lot heavier.  I was almost late getting home in time to get Billy to the bus.  He made me drive him to the corner because apparently 13 year old boys are scared of racoons. 

Took Matt to a PTA meeting.  When we arrived he was having a meltdown because he forgot to bring a toy.  It didn't matter that we were in the library and that he had a gazillion books and  a bean bag chair at his disposal.  He did recover quite nicely though. Gotta love old crayons and a  baby toy in the bottom of the purse.  See, there's a reason I never clean it out.

Quick trip to the park where it was 105 degrees--not really, but ugh!

Laundry.

I went to the dentist.  I have plaque and tartar.  Anyone know the difference?  Me neither.

Gather Tommy's baseball clothes so he can change later at the piano teacher's house.

Watch 9/11 footage while eating lunch.  See Chief of Staff Andy Card whisper into President Bush's ear.  I tear up every time with that.  Poor W.  But lucky us to have had him at the helm.

The kids got off the bus and walked straight into my car.  I threw cheese and crackers at them and we drove to the dentist, this time for the girls check-ups.  I left them at the dentist so I could drive the boys to their piano lessons. ( I asked the receptionist if I could do that.  I think she thought I was crazy.)  Picked the girls up from the dentist and then made the switch at piano for their turn.
Took Tommy to his baseball game.  Picked up girls from piano. Cooked dinner but didn't eat. Saw last 20 minutes of Tommy's game.  Went home and had dinner.  Read with Tommy and Ann for 15 minutes each (torture), showers, kisses goodnight.  (*homework done somewhere in this time frame....dentist's waiting room, piano teacher's house, car, etc.)

Call Bill to say "goodnight" but he's already half asleep pretending to be awake.  We cut the conversation short.

Make lunches (my least favorite thing to do) and then remember I'm having a playdate here in the morning and have nothing to feed my guests.  I find Betty Crocker cake mix in the pantry. We'll pretend it's someone's birthday.

More laundry.

Finally done, but then the guilt starts.... for not doing math facts with Tommy and Ann; or having time for them to study their spelling or vocabulary; did I even ask how Mary's day was? And boy, did I ever lay into Billy about that non-issue. 

Something's gotta give.

Let Vader out, grab a glass of ice water (I'm out of wine) and my computer before heading upstairs.  Let Vader back inside, but what's that I see IN HIS MOUTH???  Something gray-ish that looks like fur.  Force him back outside and run to get a spoonful of peanut butter so I can coax him to drop whatever it is in there.

Only a tennis ball.

As I give him the peanut butter I think to myself,  "This day alone would make a good blog post."

And there you have  it.

"I'm not Whooey"

Open Heart

My sister Mary Grace has this habit of ending our phone conversations or a text message by saying,

"Take care of you."

It's a line from the movie Pretty Woman.

I love when she says it.

This past month was a difficult one for me.  I had high anxiety over many things; mostly our decision to send Matthew to Kindergarten and also volunteering to Chair a committee I know little about at the elementary school.  When I tell you that fear was the only emotion I was feeling this past month, I am not exaggerating.  Justified or not, it impacted everyone in the house.

Along the way, I had friends and relatives try to "talk me down" from the hypothetical ledge.  These were the supportive words I heard:

"That is the devil making you feel that way."
"Pray, and God will help you figure it out."
"We are all here to help you."
"You'll do great."
"I know how to do that.  Let me help you."

And even though I had all of these supportive people come to my aid, I still wasn't feeling better.

At Mass on Sunday the priest opened his homily with, "The Lord wants to be in a deep relationship with you."  He went on to say that even though our hearts may be open to hear his voice, try to open them even wider.

It was then that I realized that I had been so consumed with my own self doubt and fear, that I was not even praying about it!  I was thinking, "It's not like God is going to help me figure out how to make a pdf file, so why should I pray about it?"

I was reminded recently of that clever, albeit overused, analogy of the oxygen mask on an airplane.  In an emergency the flight attendants instruct you to put on your own mask first before you attempt to help others.

In a bizarre stretch of that analogy, I guess you could say God should have been my oxygen mask this past month, but I didn't reach for Him.  That is why I was suffocating in my own emotions.

credit

Another lesson learned.  (I hope)


Take Care Of You!











 

Kindergarten

Every time we talked to Matthew about going to Kindergarten, the color would drain from his face, he would turn pale, and his lips would quiver.  For real.  To say he was nervous these last few weeks is an understatement.

So I offered him a bribe--Ice cream.  I told him if he got on the school bus without crying or clinging to me (he did this at Kindergarten registration) I would serve ice cream for dinner.  And guess what!  It worked!

Here he is waiting for the bus to come pick him up.

And here he is when he got home.

Of course, we can't forget that Tommy and Ann started today, too.

Tommy-4th grade; Ann-3rd grade

A successful day I'd say...... 

 

....even if Mom shed a few many tears.