What I Wore Sunday {19}

Joining the fun at Fine Linen and Purple with what we wore on Father's Day.

Alarm off. Take temperature. Morning offering. Feed baby. Check weather. One of these essential first steps didn't happen yesterday morning, and I wound up in a heavy, lined skirt and long-sleeved blouse on a humid 90-degree day in a church with no air conditioning. Yuck. I knew I should have set out an outfit the previous night while my brain was still on... I seriously lose the capacity for rational thought when it's hot and humid out.

Blouse: Sears

Cami: Fred Meyers

Skirt: thrifted

Shoes: Payless

Little Bear's outfit: thrifted

Poll: does he look like a girl in the blue and white checks? Matt thinks so.

Little Bear gets a B again this week for Mass behavior, although his daddy would tell you that I'm being unnecessarily generous. I felt sorry for the little guy though, with it being so uncomfortably hot, and his only real meltdown happened when we were already in the cry room with the door closed, so it didn't distract anyone else... A little girl about his age crawled over to where he was sitting on a kneeler--being good and quiet--and grabbed his hand and smiled at him, and he burst into tears and backed away from her. Okay, I get it, it's nap time.

We celebrated Father's Day low-key this year... Little Bear and Matt both got naps after Mass, we gave Matt a package of Lebanon Bologna because he's been on a specialty sausage kick recently, and Matt grilled moose burgers in the evening. Nothing exciting, but a quiet day to relax is always nice.

Seven Quick Takes Friday, Vol. 35

Happy Friday! Linking up with Jen over at Conversion Diary today.

I

How do the weeks go by so quickly without me accomplishing anything? It seems like it's all I can do to keep the house clean, the meals cooked, and the child somewhat happy, despite the teeth that just keep coming. It's summer! I want to be outside doing fun things with my family--hiking, planting, playing at parks, making spontaneous trips to fun places around town--but it's always nap time or raining or we are all too tired from... from what? The basic chores that by rights should take a half hour a day? I don't know.

II

To be fair, I've spent an absurd amount of time in doctors' waiting rooms over the past few weeks, which has eaten up my days and delayed naps and generated plenty of stress. Our insurance's fiscal year restarts on July 1, so we are trying to keep as many medical procedures as we can in June so that insurance will cover them. Which means that I'll be getting all four wisdom teeth out on June 28... yay... Matt is taking off that day (a Friday) and the following Monday to take care of Little Bear while I'm recovering, for which I am very grateful.

III

We are standing! Little Bear can go from sitting or crawling to standing up without holding anything or using anything to pull himself up. No walking yet--he just stands there clapping and looking proud of himself--but he is standing for longer periods every day. It is so much fun to watch as he keeps learning and growing!

IV

...And growing, and growing, and growing... The boy is 21 pounds, much bigger than any of my mom's kids were at his age! I know he's actually no more than average for kids in the U.S., but I'm so accustomed to smaller babies that he seems really big. And I know that it is healthy weight, muscle and bone and such, because he is so active and would spend every waking minute moving if I didn't occasionally corral him to sit still and listen to stories. Because he is my first, though, and everyone likes to tell new moms what to do, and because one of the pediatric buzzwords these days is "childhood obesity," there is a part of me that's cringing as we get ready for his 12 month appointment, worried that some nurse will only look at numbers instead of at my kid crawling all over the exam room and start lecturing me. Unreasonable? Yes, probably.

V

We are all getting impatient for him to turn one so that we can put him in a forward-facing car seat; I found a fairly new one in good condition at a garage sale last weekend, and it cleaned up very nicely with a bit of Simple Green. He has well and truly outgrown his rear-facing seat: His head comes above the top, and his knees are scrunched up because his feet hit the seat back. This makes him unhappy, which makes all of us very unhappy on our hour-long drive to and from Sunday Mass. The new car seat is a convertible one, so we could put it in backwards now... but it wouldn't really solve the problem because his legs are so long, and the sides are much higher than the one he is in now, so he wouldn't be able to see out the window.

VI

Part of my productivity problem, I've determined, is that Little Bear wants to sleep on my lap. He falls asleep nursing, and if I lay him down in his crib or on a blanket, he will sleep for fifteen minutes to a half hour at the very, very most. If I let him sleep on me, he will stay asleep for several hours. Several hour nap = happy child = happy but unproductive mama. But if he's unhappy I'm unproductive too, because he wants to be held while he whines incessantly, and I'm pretty sure happily unproductive trumps unhappily unproductive. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm just committed to being unproductive until he learns to sleep in his own bed? Is this resignation or a cleverly disguised excuse for laziness? Don't answer that.

VII

Today is the "spiritual birthday" (birth into eternal life) of one of my favorite lay writers: G. K. Chesterton. I could fill reams with "favorite" quotes from his extensive work, but here are two for your weekend:

What fairy tales give the child is his first idea of the possible defeat of the bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

- Tremendous Trifles

Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours?

- The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The Things We Say

Oh, parenthood. How many times have Matt or I said something to Little Bear, then realized how incredibly absurd it sounded? Maybe eventually things like this will stop sounding so odd...

Who keeps putting Cheerios in my dishwasher?

Small human, stop licking the bathroom cabinets.

That is your mess to play with, and this is Mama's.

Mmm, did you find a Cheerio on the floor? Those are the best, aren't they?

Daddy doesn't eat socks.

I don't care how many times you throw the octopus; you aren't getting in the shower.

Do we play in dishwashers? No we do not.

I imagine it will only get worse for the next few years as he grows and learns how to do more things... If he's anything like my siblings (and therefore probably me), the first few years will see him starring in an astonishing number of "How did you even come up with that?!?" moments. And Matt and I will get lots of practice at not laughing when he does something he shouldn't and it turns out hilariously poorly.

It's a good thing we have the ability to think back on past events and laugh... there are plenty of things, and I'm sure there will be plenty more, that seemed so awful and frustrating at the time but are funny in retrospect. Getting my mom's car stuck in the snow on top of a mountain the night Matt proposed. Someone backing into our car the day after we got it back from the shop. Little Bear unwinding an entire roll of toilet paper all over the bathroom and down the hall.

As my mother always reminded us growing up, "Someday you'll look back at this and laugh." And we do. And we will, in the future, about those things Little Bear does that make us crazy today. God is so good to have given us that gift!

What I Wore Sunday {18}

Linking up late with Fine Linen and Purple's What I Wore Sunday and Camp Patton's Sunday Best.

Our parish has about 400 families, and 500 children. And, as our pastor put it yesterday morning, sometimes we can all tell. He made a point of addressing the subject of children in Mass, emphasizing that children are welcome and that it's necessary for parents to bring their children, not leave them at home or keep them in the cry room where they won't bother anyone. Parents should be bringing their children and only taking them out when they need to be calmed down, he said, and all of the adults in the parish need to make sure they are modeling appropriate Mass behavior so that children will not have poor examples. He encouraged parishioners without young children to be aware of the difficulties parents may be having and offer help instead of becoming annoyed; many young families come from the Air Force base, and he reminded people that it is absurd to frown upon a mom bringing four little ones to Mass by herself while Dad is deployed and not being able to keep them all silent all the time. 

Little Bear was an excellent example of a kid having trouble being good and quiet... All through this homily, he was crawling around the narthex and playing on the stairs because every time I picked him up, the piercing shrieks began again. I apologized to Father after Mass, and he just laughed and said that illustrations are always good. Little Bear gets a B this week, because other than our time in the narthex during the homily, he was quiet and well-behaved enough to stay in the pew. Well, until the tambourine during the recessional, but I didn't mind him expressing my feelings about that. ;-)

What did you do for the solemnity of the Sacred Heart on Friday? Little Bear and I made it to Mass at my parents' parish, which is echoey and lacking in small children, so we spent most of Mass in the cry room to avoid bothering people. He was very happy about that, because there was a little girl about his size to make faces at. In the evening, after picking Matt up from work, we visited my family and enjoyed these feast day-appropriate treats:

Aren't they fun? My mom is so good at coming up with things like that!

And finally, the point of the linkup: the outfit. I have no idea what I was looking at here...

Top: grey lightweight sweater, thrifted

Skirt: navy pencil skirt with white polkadots, thrifted

Shoes: black wedge Mary Janes, thrifted

Looking at the photo, I don't think the sweater was the best choice. What kind of top could I pair with this skirt to make it work better? There is a thin red band about two inches below the waist, currently hidden by the sweater, which would have to be taken into account if I tucked something in... I'd love suggestions!

Seven Quick Takes Friday, Vol. 34

Linking up at the end of another week with Jen of Conversion Diary! 

I

Today has been partly sunny and warmish all day long, which is a welcome respite from the past four days' bipolar switching between hot & sunny and cold & pouring every thirty minutes. Since I couldn't trust the weather to hold steady, Little Bear and I didn't get a good walk in all week... Yes, I'm totally blaming the sky for my laziness. Shush. We will make up for it tomorrow, though: Matt's coworker lent him the P90X program, and we are doing the ab workout tomorrow morning.

II

The jeep went in to the shop on Monday to take care of the damage from the lady rear-ending it at a stop sign a month ago. It was supposed to be done today, but they called yesterday to let us know that the damage was more extensive than they'd thought, and it would be at least an extra week. As long as the lady's insurance doesn't whine about paying for our rental car for the extra week, I don't mind. Actually, they can whine as much as they want to, as long as they pay for it! Allstate has an agreement with Enterprise, specific to Alaska (sorry), that they will pay for a "comparable" rental vehicle instead of a "reasonably-sized" car. When we got to Enterprise on Monday morning, though, Allstate had only authorized a tiny little car, and we have a small SUV. And I have to say, I think the world of Enterprise: the lady helping us got on the phone with Allstate and argued her way up the chain of command until she got someone willing to actually look at the rules about Alaska and approve upgrading us. I am definitely enjoying driving this 2012 Jeep Liberty!

III

Sometimes "good news" test results actually aren't all that helpful... Three doctors have now looked at my MRI results, and they all say that it looks great! Nothing's wrong! Except, hmm, something obviously is wrong, I've never seen anything like it, you'd better go see another doctor. I'm now on the hunt for a physical therapist, and am supposed to report back to the orthopedic surgeon in a month. Gee, I wish they were doing all of this work to fix my hip, which actually hurts, instead of my shoulder which is apparently much more medically interesting... I shouldn't complain; I know everyone is trying to figure out what's going on in my shoulder to try to explain what is happening with the rest of my joints.

IV

Little Bear and I had quite the morning in town today, and it made me look forward (happily) to having fun with him as he gets a little older. After dropping Matt off at work, we went to a little coffee shop and shared a Greek yogurt and an oatmeal cookie (oatmeal = breakfast, right?) until we had to head to the orthopedic surgeon's at 9. After that we read stories at the library for a good forty-five minutes, then spent almost that long playing on the swings and slides at a nearby park before visiting the parish where Matt and I were married for the rosary and noon Mass. It was such a fun, relaxed morning, and it was so nice to be doing things that made Little Bear happy instead of dragging a grumpy kidlet from one errand to the next. It also wore him out, and he fell asleep in the car on the way home!

V

Unfortunately, he woke up when I turned the car off, and it took an hour of chasing him around the house while he tore things apart and created multitudes of messy diapers before he went back down. Oh, well... He has pretty much transitioned himself to one nap a day (against my wishes - he's only 11 months!), so I should be grateful that he fell back to sleep at all.

VI

Dry shampoo. 

So the other day, I found out last-minute-ish-ly that a friend wanted to stop by, and without thinking about it, agreed. "Sure! I'll see you in 20." I hung up, looked in the mirror, looked at the kid, looked at my house. Whoops. The kid needed to be changed, the house looked like a pintsized tornado had been merrily wandering from room to room all day, and my hair... well, I was not fit to be seen in public. Or seen at all. In 20 minutes, I could either clean up after Little Bear or shower--not both (the diaper was obviously getting changed, which ate up five minutes with trying to keep the angry naked pintsized tornado contained until he had a clean diaper on...). The house won.

With a couple of minutes remaining, house straightened, clean child hanging onto my knees and waving a stuffed trout around in his mouth, I remembered hearing someone once mention dry shampoo. Dry, as in no shower? That would've been nice... then I googled it and had a minor heart attack over the price they wanted for a minuscule bottle of scented cornstarch. But I have cornstarch... 

Yes, yes I did comb cornstarch through my hair. And was shocked at how well it worked. Apparently too shocked to think straight, because I was silly enough to tell my husband, who was more than a little amused at the lengths women go to  for fashion. "Why couldn't you have just put a hat on?" Men.

VII 

It was phenomenally useful, but I can't even imagine spending that much money for "real" dry shampoo, but if (when) I run into a situation like that again I don't need him laughingly telling the baby about Mama putting food in her hair... at least I didn't use powdered sugar! We don't have any talcum powder or anything like that... If I just fill an empty pretty bottle with cornstarch, label it "dry shampoo," and stick it in the bathroom, will my husband figure it out? Or has anyone actually made their own "real" dry shampoo?

Have a lovely weekend! A blessed Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus today, and Immaculate Heart of Mary tomorrow!

Menu and Monday

Even though I haven't exactly done a stellar job of actually posting these on Mondays so far, it's been a good discipline to have that nagging expectation in the back of my mind that I will plan the week's menu on or by Monday. We have lovely, cooler weather for at least the first part of the week--50s and 60s--so I don't mind planning meals that require the stove and oven. If it gets hot again, though, some of these will likely change:

Monday: calzones, salad 

Tuesday: chicken/roasted vegetable flatbread 

Wednesday: pork stir fry, brown rice, salad

Thursday: pasta con salsiccia, broccoli 

Friday (Solemnity of the Sacred Heart): dinner with my family 

Saturday (Immaculate Heart of Mary): pork chops, salad, muffins?

Sunday: halibut, baked beans, salad (trying again - last Friday was too hot!)

Aaand, the rest of my post disappeared, and it's not even Tuesday anymore, and I'm not going to try to recreate it right now! Hopefully I'll have a real post up tomorrow.

What I Wore Sunday {17}

Linking up with the lovely ladies of Fine Linen and Purple and Grace of Camp Patton to celebrate Corpus Christi! Or the Second Sunday after Pentecost, if you celebrated Corpus Christi on Thursday. I know I'm usually unhappy when they move feast days to Sunday, but this one doesn't bother me so much: It isn't one that is supposed to fit with others numerically, like the Ascension being ten days after Pentecost or the Annunciation being exactly nine months before Christmas. If moving Corpus Christi doesn't mess up any other numbers, and gives more people the ability to celebrate this particular emphasis on the True Presence, then I can support it.

Our pastor gave an excellent homily, as usual, although I missed half of it changing a diaper... Matt tells me that I missed a lot, so I will have to go listen to the recording when Father posts it. I'm so glad that he does that every week! It certainly helps on days like today, where one or the other of us spends most of the liturgy walking around the narthex with the noisy child.

In the spirit of Grace's linkup, I suppose I should start "grading" Little Bear's behavior during Mass; today was a solid C. He was quiet and still through the gospel, but as soon and Father began his homily, he stopped pretending to be a well-behaved child and began fussing and crawling under the pew behind us until Matt picked him up and noticed that he was wet, and I took him out to change him. I'd give him a better grade for having a legitimate reason for fussing, but he decided that he wanted to stay in the narthex and yelled whenever we tried to bring him back in, so Matt took him out until Communion, and then I spent the rest of Mass out there with him.

The child looked different this week: He had his first real (with the clippers) haircut on Friday evening! I cut Matt's hair first so that Little Bear could see that it wasn't a scary thing, but it didn't work... he cried the whole time Matt's hair was being cut, even though Matt kept reassuring him that everything was okay. We wound up giving in and putting him in front of a show while Matt held him and he cried and I cut his hair. He wasn't unhappy enough to take his eyes off the screen while I cut his hair, though, so some of the protesting may have been more a matter of principle...

I'll miss those curls... They will be back this winter, though, to keep his head warm!

Yesterday I made a trip to the thrift store with my mom and two sisters, and I finally found some fun, nursing-friendly things for summer! Including today's outfit:

Top: thrifted 

Capris: thrifted

Sandals: these are wedge flip flops from Walmart years ago, but for Mass I wore the Payless sandals from last week

Have a lovely week!